Tuesday, February 21, 2006

ALL OUT SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 11:00 A.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.STOP THE WAR!BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOWEND COLONIAL OCCUPATION FROM IRAQ TO PALESTINE TO HAITI...U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST!FROM IRAQ TO NEW ORLEANS, FUND PEOPLE'S NEEDS,NOT THE WAR MACHINE!VOLUNTEER NOW: 415-821-6545Endorse March 18 Global Day of ActionVolunteer Now! To get involved, call 415-821-6545 or email answer@actionsf.org

To learn more about Lynne Stewart's case go to:http://www.lynnestewart.org/

More than a year has passed since Lynne F. Stewart, a defense lawyer who proudly calls herself a radical, was convicted of aiding terrorists in a high-profile federal trial in New York. But she still has not been sentenced.

Debate has percolated about the Feb. 10, 2005, verdict againstMs. Stewart, with civil libertarians saying it violated her rights to represent a terrorist client and justice officials promoting it as a blow against terrorism. But the court became strangely quiet about the case, with Judge John G. Koeltl repeatedly postponing the sentencing without explanation.

Yesterday, Ms. Stewart, who remains free on bail, clarified the mystery when her lawyers filed a letter revealing that she is recovering from surgery on Jan. 9 for breast cancer and is about to start a program of radiation therapy. She requested a new delay of her sentencing until after July 31.

Ms. Stewart said that she had alerted Judge Koeltl about her cancer soon after her doctors saw signs of it in November, but the judge agreed to keep any discussion of her illness confidential until now.

"Talk about getting hit over the head with a sledgehammer, oh me," said Ms. Stewart, recalling the day in early December when her doctor, reading the results of a biopsy, confirmed the tumor.

Ms. Stewart, 66, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison, in effect a life sentence, after her conviction on five counts of providing material aid to terrorism and lying to the government. She was found guilty of conspiring with an imprisoned terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, to defy special federal rules that barred him from communicating with his militant Islamic followers in Egypt.

In May 2000 Ms. Stewart carried a message from the sheik out of federal prison and later read it by telephone to a Reuters reporter in Cairo. The sheik was convicted in 1995 and is serving a life sentence for conspiring in 1993 to bomb the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and other New York City landmarks.

Ms. Stewart said she had no illusion about much chance of avoiding prison. Judge Koeltl, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, denied her motions for a new trial in a sternly worded Oct. 25 ruling.

In a telephone interview from a country home upstate where she is recuperating, Ms. Stewart said, "The ultimate reality is this sentencing is going to happen." She said she hoped the judge would agree that she should recover from the cancer before going to prison. Her message, she said, is, "You may send me to jail for the rest of my life, but at least I'll go in strong and resistant to whatever happens."

After a Feb. 24 sentencing date was postponed, she was scheduled to be sentenced on March 10.

A letter from Ms. Stewart's oncologist, Dr. Michael L. Grossbard, filed with the court yesterday, reported that surgeons had removed a 2.4-centimeter "invasive ductal carcinoma" from her left breast. Dr. Grossbard, the chief of hematology and oncology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, said that Ms. Stewart would require radiation treatments every weekday for about six weeks, starting at the end of this month.

"Fatigue can be a severe side effect for some patients and can limit their participation in usual daily activities," Dr. Grossbard wrote.

Ms. Stewart, who appeared sturdy and resolute throughout the trial, said that dealing with illness in the wake of her conviction had been difficult. "I have been totally consumed by this," she said. "I'm fragile enough that I can't just sit down and talk about this sentencing in the abstract."

Prosecutors in the case had no comment yesterday, noting that most of the court record about Ms. Stewart's health was still under seal.

For months after the trial Ms. Stewart, a cause célèbre in leftist and civil liberties circles, traveled around the country, speaking to groups of supporters. She stopped when the cancer was diagnosed, she said. She also learned last year that she had high blood pressure.

Ms. Stewart and her lawyers denied that she was seeking any special dispensation from the court. "We're not asking for anything out of the ordinary, beyond what is reasonable for the therapy she is undergoing," said Jill R. Shellow-Lavine, one of Ms. Stewart's lawyers. They are seeking a filing date of July 31 for their sentencing motions, which could lead to a sentencing date as late as September.

Two other defendants in the case are also awaiting sentencing. They are Mohamed Yousry, 49, Ms. Stewart's Arabic translator, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 46, a postal worker from Staten Island who was a paralegal in the sheik's case. Mr. Yousry remains free on bail, but Mr. Sattar, who was convicted of conspiring to kidnap and kill in a foreign country, the most serious charge in the trial, is now in maximum security solitary confinement in the federal jail in Manhattan.

A lawyer for Mr. Sattar, Kenneth A. Paul, said his client had been abruptly transferred recently to the most severe isolation unit in the Metropolitan Correctional Center and placed under the same type of restrictions, known as special administrative measures, that were imposed on Mr. Abdel Rahman. Mr. Sattar is confined to his cell 24 hours a day. The one-hour daily recreation time that he had had since he was first incarcerated four years ago has been canceled.

"He's in a complete shutdown right now," Mr. Paul said, "with no phone calls and no visitation, and we don't know why."

"Among other things, Mr. Bennish asked his class which country has the most weapons of mass destruction and answered the United States. He suggested that capitalism was inimical to human rights and that the U.S. wants to create by military force if necessary a world in its own image. He suggested that there were chilling similarities between Bush's words and those of Hitler. Right on the mark if you ask me! Meanwhile, the moronic Gunny Bob said that Bennish criticized capitalism but was a capitalist himself (because he gets paid a wage?).Finally, on March 3, the Denver Post noted that, near the end of the recording, Mr. Bennish told his students, "You have to figure this stuff out for yourselves. . . . I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me. . . . What I'm trying to get you to do is think about these issues more in depth and not just to take things from the surface." And, "I'm glad you [those students who challenged him] asked all of your questions because they're all very good, legitimate questions." Sounds like a real brain washer to me!"

I am appalled to read these articles and learn that geography teacher, Jay Bennish, who teaches at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado is in trouble and out of work for things he said in an honors geography class. What happened to freedom of speech and for the right of students and teachers to discuss freely the current events of the day. How can this be avoided in a subject like geography?

Are our teachers to be given a script to read in the classroom and the admonition to prohibit any discussion that deviates from that script?

And, even more outrageous, is the School District going to dance to the tune of right-wing radio announcers? Is this what our educational system is going to come to? Is congress ready to appoint Bill O'Reiley and Fox's Hannity and Colmes to head the Department of Education?

This is an outrageous travesty of justice that won't be tolerated and has already attracted the attention of people throughout our country.

Put Jay Bennish back to work with all of his back pay (if he has lost any) and keep right-wing radio out of the classroom!

Teachers like Jay are beacons of light and should be cherished! His comments as reprinted above show that he is the voice of reason.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against WarWww.bauaw.org

VOTE ON LINE FOR JAY BENNISH AND FREE SPEECH: http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/rockytalklive/

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SCROLL DOWN TO READ:EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTSGENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTSARTICLES IN FULLLINKS ONLY

COME TO THE NEXT BOARD MEETINGS TO DEMAND THAT THE S.F. BOARD OF EDUCATIONCUT ALL SCHOOL TIES TO THE MILITARY!Note: The meeting last evening, Tuesday, Feb. 28did not take up the "Equal Access Resolution."

If you wish to speak at the Regular Board meetingCall: 241-6427 to get on the speakers list.Monday between 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.Tuesday, between 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.(You do not need to get on the list aheadof time for the Curriculum Committee meetingto speak.)

Recruiters of all types (including but not limited to employment, education, service opportunities, military or military alternatives) shall be given equal access to San Francisco Unified School District high schools. The principal at each school shall determine the frequency with which recruiters may visit, but in order to be in compliance with the equal access rule, each recruiter shall be granted the opportunity to visit any single campus at least as frequently as any other recruiter. For purposes of this policy, each branch of the military is considered to be a separate recruiting organization.

This recruitment policy must be posted throughout the year. At a minimum, these rules shall be posted in the school’s main office, counseling center, career center, and on the District’s website.

All recruiters must comply with the following guidelines:

• Recruiters must obtain the written permission of the principal or designee to be on campus. Such permission may be granted for the full year;• Recruiters must contact the principal or designee prior to their visit to schedule specific times to be on campus, and the monthly schedule for such visits must be posted at a minimum in the school’s main office, counseling center, and career center;• All recruiters must sign in and sign out in the school’s main office each time they visit the campus;• Recruiters shall limit all recruiting activities to the specific area designated by the principal or designee. This designated area must be within a specific confined space on the campus (such as a classroom or office); recruiters may not roam the campus or grounds. Recruiters may not pursue or approach students; recruiting activities may only be directed at students who affirmatively approach the recruiter for information. • The principal or designee may permit recruiters to leave information in a designated area. Such information must be dated and clearly identify a contact name and number that students, staff or others may call if there are questions about the information;• If the principal or designee designates such an area for recruiter information, the area must include a clearly visible sign that states that SFUSD and the school do not endorse or sponsor the materials;• All recruiters must clearly identify the organization that they are recruiting for: military recruiters must be in uniform, and all other recruiters must wear identification that similarly indicates the organization that they are recruiting for;• Recruiters may not take students out of the designated recruitment area or off campus;• No more than two recruiters from each organization may recruit on campus at one time.

Recruiters of all types are cautioned to remember that the primary goal of the SFUSD high schools is to educate students. Recruiting activities that are disruptive or that interfere with the traditional activities of a given school day are not permitted.

Recruiters who harass students or staff, provide misleading or untrue information, or who do not comply with applicable state and federal laws or SFUSD rules or policies may have their organization’s permission to recruit on campus revoked for the remainder of the semester, or the semester following the infraction if the infraction occurs after the fifteenth week of the semester. The principal or designee, in his or her discretion, may provide students with access to information to correct any misleading or untrue information provided by such recruiter(s), if available.

The principal shall retain copies of the recruitment calendars and sign-in sheets and provide such copies to the Assistant Superintendent for High Schools by June 30th of each year.

That the Board of Education approves a new Board Policy regarding Equal Access for Recruiters. This policy provides for equal access to SFUSD high schools for all types of recruiters, including but not limited to employment, education, service opportunities, military or military alternatives. The policy also outlines the guidelines and restrictions related to recruiting activities and access.

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The claim was that since "No Child Left Behind" funds (about $40 million for San Francisco Schools) requires thatthe military have equal access to students whenever otherrecruiters--Colleges and Universities--come to the schoolsto talk to children about their future opportunities, the boardfelt it was necessary to lay out guidelines for military visits to ensure equality of access to the kids.

As the situation stands in S.F., students and their parentshave signed the "Opt In-Out" forms by over 98 percent and very few of those "Opted In" to military contact and recruitment.So, since the "opt out" forms have thwarted the military ghouls,they are seeking yet another way to get to our kids. I guesstheir $3 billion dollar recruitment advertising budget is not producing the results they would like.

And, as it stood before this resolution, not all schools invited the military to their "career days" even thoughthe colleges were represented. It was voluntary on the partof the career counselors whether or not to invite them.This resolution will make it mandatory for schools to havethe military present at all such events--even when new scholarships are offered by particular schools of higherlearning. Yet it does not require that counter-recruitersbe present at the same time as the military. Instead, it leavesit open whether to have counter-recruiters come at all orperhaps, allow counter-recruiters on another day or to just put up with us handing out counter-recruitmentmaterial outside of school doors. (The distinction wasmade that "counter recruiters" are not "recruiters" anddo not offer alternative career opportunities.)

The resolution will also spell out the terms of announcingthe military visits before hand which will require realcoordination on the part of the antiwar movement to counter the military when they do invade our schools.The wording in the resolution reads that any "recruiter" can visit the school as often as "any other recruiter". Andeach Military branch is to be considered separate from the other. I.E. if SFSU comes to the school then someone from the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and National Guard canalso come! A suggestion was made that this be amendedto allow only one military recruiter for all branches at any one time.

With the passage of Prop. I, to stop military recruitmentin the schools, the Board of Education is mandatedto at least try to keep the military out of our schools. What is disturbing is that even though it is clear that the voters and residents of San Francisco are opposed to the war and to military recruitment in the schools, the board is not mounting a vigorous fight against the No Child Left Behind Act which comes up for renewal this year. They should be writing to otherBoards of Education throughout the country to opposethe military holding our kids hostage in order to fundthe schools. What is most disgusting about the wholething is that the overwhelming majority of funds fromNo Child Left Behind goes to K-8th grade and not to theHigh Schools where the ghouls want to hunt! So the olderkids must sacrifice their lives for the education of theiryounger siblings or schoolmates.

This is another issue that the antiwar movement must address and fight and why it is so important for us to unite our efforts.

For instance, with the world headquarters of Bechtel right herein San Francisco, the Board, in cooperation with the antiwarmovement, could mount a campaign to get the $40 million from them and other such multi-billion dollar corporationsheadquartered or stationed in San Francisco so we can sayNO! to No Child Left Behind and fulfill the wishes of the majority of San Francisco voters to get the military out of our schools including JROTC.

The antiwar movement could mount a campaign to pullany "breaks" offered to such corporations in our city untilthey come up with the money our schools need to keep themilitary out of our schools. The people of San Francisco must demand that the money for our schools take priority over military spending. And that those corporations based in San Francisco who have profitedoff the war should foot the bill for our schools. With a budget the size of Bechtell's profits our schools couldbring back art, music, dance, swimming, new laboratories,computers, nurses, etc. and, higher pay for teachers.

This resolution No. 62-14Sp1 will first be brought to the Curriculum Committee tentatively scheduled forMarch 9 then to the whole Board for a vote on March 28. (These dates are tentative and will be posted to the Board of Ed website for confirmation at:http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=boardWe will announce the confirmed dates as well.)

We urge everyone to come to the meetingsand speak against this resolution at every opportunity.

There will be a protest rally at Oakland City Hall on Tuesday March 7th at 4PM. The rally, initiated by the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee and endorsed by ILWU Local 10, the longshore union, will take place while the City Council is meeting to take a final vote on the settlements in the case of the bloody police attack on April 7, 2003 against anti-war demonstrators and longshore workers at terminal gates in the port. This planned police deployment shortly after the start of the war in Iraq used so-called "non-lethal" weapons to stop peaceful anti-war demonstrators from protesting, war profiteers, the maritime companies, American President Lines and Stevedore Services of America. The attack was condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission as one of the most violent acts of government repression. Mayor Jerry Brown and City Council President Ignacio de la Fuente, who have backed the police attack, received protest messages from the late Ossie Davis, Alice Walker, and trade union organizations representing millions of workers around the world.

It's necessary for all organizations that are concerned about civil liberties, civil rights, trade union rights, police brutality to mobilize your members to protest this police attack and the government cover-up. Speakers at the rally will include some of the victims of the police attack and messages of solidarity. Paying financial settlements to victims of police brutality does not solve the problem of the continuous violation of our democratic rights. Only by mobilizing in masses of working people can we defend those rights for all.

1. End the War in Iraq! Bring the Troops Home Now!2. No War at Home! Money for Human Needs, Jobs, Education,Healthcare and Hurricane Disaster Relief, Not War!3. No U.S. Wars and Occupations from Palestine to Haiti, fromAfghanistan to Cuba, from Iran to Venezuela!

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International Women's DayWednesday, March 8th 2006 6:30-9pmFirst Unitarian Church685 14th StreetOakland, California 94612Breaking Rank: Women of Color Soldiers Speak OutTo celebrate International Women's Day, the Women ofColor Resource Center will host the premier screeningof "Fashion Resistance to Militarism," a fresh andprovocative documentary looking at the militarizationof U.S. society and culture and resistance to war bycommunities in the U.S.Following the screening will be a panel discussionwith Aimee Allison and Tina Garnanez, two leadingwomen of color veterans from the Gulf War and Iraq Warwho now actively speak out against the war andmilitarism.International Women's Day is an occasion marked bywomen's groups around the world and commemorated bythe United Nations. It is a day for women on allcontinents, often divided by national boundaries andby ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic andpolitical differences, to come together to celebratetheir struggle for equality, justice, peace anddevelopment. International Women's Day is the story ofordinary women making herstory, and WCRC willcommemorate our day with this important documentaryand stories of resistance by leading peace activists.For more information, visit our website atwww.coloredgirls.org. -----code pink:

We will gather at the military recruiting station, 2116 Broadway @21st St, Oakland - 2 blocks north of the 19th St BART, at 5:00 PM. From there, we will march down Broadway (on the sidewalk, not the street) to 14th Street, turning right on 14th street. We will stop at the Frank Ogawa Plaza on 14th Street, long enough to meet up with more folks, eat some snacks, (bring your own and some to share) and possibly enjoy some spontaneous singing, drumming, sharing of stories. We will then proceed on to the First Unitarian Church, 665 14th St. for the event: "Breaking Silence: Women of Color Soldiers Speak Out." The whole march route is about 3/4 of a mile. If you are not able to walk that distance, or cannot be at the recruiting station by 5:00 PM, please meet us at the Frank Ogawa Plaza, adjacent to City Hall, on the 14th street side. Wear pink, bring a sign, and think of chants for the march.

Janet Rosenhttp://www.zanshinart.com"Work like you don't need the money.Love like you've never been hurt.Dance like nobody's watching."--Satchel Paige

Primo has his passport in hand and his tickets have been secured; the UNT is eager for him to visit the US and tell the Venezuelan story! Let’s roll up our sleeves and make this happen! Everyone is urged to attend this planning meeting. We will go over all the many tasks and assignments in preparation for this most important event.

If you have suggestions for where we can distribute fliers at upcoming events, please make a suggestion.There is one special task we need help on now: Who can translate the flier into Spanish?If you need leaflets to distribute, we will have them at the meeting!

Call Hands Off Venezuela 415-786-1680 for more information or email: sfbay@ushov.org

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March for Peace: Latino Voices of Opposition to Iraq War!http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/03/march-for-peace-latino-voices-of.html

On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 241 mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way.

The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.

more info see

http://www.swiftsmartveterans.com/

War resisters and conscientious objectors Pablo Paredes and Aidan Delgado are coming to the Bay Area to speak at about 20 events! including at least 9 public events, from Sacramento to Watsonville, as well as Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Davis and San Rafael. Additional speaking events are scheduled at schools.

The schedule for the public events of the speaking tour and a high resolution flyer are now available at http://www.veteransforpeace.org/paredes/paredes.htm.

Pablo Paredes will be in the Bay Area from Feb 27 – Mar 5, and Aidan Delgado from Mar 2 – Mar 5.

Please circulate widely, and we hope to see you at least at one event!

SteveCheck out the online January '06 Objector - http://www.objector.org/magazine.html

General, your tank is a mighty vehicle. It shatters the forest and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: it needs drivers.

General, your bomber is awesome. It flies faster than a hurricane and bears more than an elephant. But it has one defect: it needs a mechanic.

General, a man is quite expendable. He can fly and can kill. But he has one defect: he can think.

Bertolt Brecht

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ANSWER ANTI-WAR TEACH-IN: The expanding U.S. War Drive & the forces resisting itSat, March 4, 1-4pmSan Francisco Women's Building 3543 18th St. (btwn Valencia & Guerrero) near 16th St. BART station

Topics Include:-Iraq, Iran and Syria: U.S. Strategy for Domination in the Middle East-The Elections in Palestine and the Struggle for Self-Determination-Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia: The Rising Tide in Latin America and Danger of U.S. Intervention-The War at Home, from New Orleans to Bayview-Hunter's Point-Washington Global Strategy and What It Means for the Anti-War Movement

Hear first-hand reports from Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Colombia and Haiti, and analysis of the growing U.S. war drive and the forces resisting it. Time for discussion will follow panel presentations.

Sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)

A.N.S.W.E.R. CoalitionAct Now to Stop War & End Racismhttp://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.orgsf@internationalanswer.org2489 Mission St. Rm. 24San Francisco: 415-821-6545

Make a tax-dedctible donation to A.N.S.W.E.R. by credit card over a secure server, learn how to donate by check.

Postering for March 18 Anti-war Protest - Volunteer Now!A.N.S.W.E.R. ACTIVIST MEETINGTUESDAYs, 7PM2489 Mission St. Room 24 (at 21st St.) SF, near 24th St. BART Now more than ever, the anti-war movement needs to reach out to the thousands of people who are turning against the war and occupation of Iraq. Your help is needed. Call the ANSWER office for the schedule to go out in teams to poster for an hour or two. Pick up flyers, posters and stickers at the ANSWER office at 2489 Mission St. Room 30. Join us for a political update on the recent election in Haiti and developments in the Middle East. Also, an eyewitness report back from the Atlanta appeal court hearing of the case of the Cuban Five. After the meeting, we will team up and go out postering for March 18. Your help is needed!Call 415-821-6545 for hours.

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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FAR AND WIDE!! A CALL TO ACTION!!STOP EVICTIONS IN BAYVIEW-HUNTERS POINTTUESDAY, MARCH 7, 4:00 p.m.ROOM 416, CITY HALL, S.F.Companeros/companeras:Below please find an editorial by Willie Ratcliff,publisher of SF Bay View, about a March 7 hearingbefore Redevelopment Authority, which will seal thefate of Bayview Hunter's Point. Many of us have beensaying for years that the Bayview will be the newFillmore. March 7 is, as Ratcliff says, an evictionnotice for the residents of Bayview Hunters Point. Notlong after coming into office, Mayor Gavin Newsom didphoto ops with young black men on a basketball courtin Bayview (he was lavished with praise by ourmindless media for that), but he knew damn well thenthat their displacement was imminent. It's all part ofSan Francisco's hypocrisy about racism and classism."Oh, we're a liberal city, we oppose racism andclassism..." people and politicians say, even as theystand idly by while more and more poor, working-classand people of color are pushed out of the city byEllis Act evictions for TICs for the upper middleclass and Redevelopment Authority's "negro removal,"as it was called by black activists in the 60s.

Why is it that removing "urban blight" from our citiesmeans giving poor, working-class and people of color aone-way ticket to another city? Why can'tRedevelopment work on building communities from within(with no-interest business loans and subsidies tohomeowners and landlords to fix up their properties,)instead of declaring "eminent domain" and stealing theland from folks who have nothing else? IfRedevelopment wants to do some real cleaning of urbanblight why not confiscate the mansions in PacificHeights and do a little redistributing of the wealth!But that's not the game in America. Redevelopment is atool of the real-estate interests that want togentrify all of our neighborhoods. It's about removingpoor folks so that middle-class and upper-class folkscan have their homes. It's a time-honored Americantradition. Native Americans were pushed from theirland as wagon trains of settlers, driven by manifestdestiny, spread westward. Similarly, the new Bayviewis not for the folks who live there now. As formerMayor Willie Brown himself said before he left office,the new Bayview will be market-rate condos with thebest views in town.

Your help is desperately needed.

Come to the hearing on March 7 at City Hall room 416,4pm. It is imperative that we stand with the residentsof Bayview. It is imperative that people from allcommunities and struggles come together to oppose theannexing of 1300 acres of land next to the shipyard.No more Fillmores! No eviction notice for Bayview! Nomore gentrification! Redistribute the wealth, don'tsteal our homes! The land does not belong to therealtors or the rich! Nuestra tierra, nuestro mundo!Our land, our world!

Estamos juntos en la lucha...we are together in thestruggle--or we all go down separately!

tommi avicolli mecca

Read:

Eviction notice served on Bayview Hunters PointEditorial by Willie Ratcliffhttp://www.sfbayview.com/020806/evictionnotice020806.shtml

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WALKIN TO NEW ORLEANSMARCH 14 THROUGH MARCH 19, 2006http://vetgulfmarch.org/

Veterans For Peace (VFP), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), and Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP), at the call of the Mobile Veterans For Peace Chapter #130, will conduct a march between Mobile, AL, and New Orleans, LA, from March 14-19, 2006 -- the third anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

This historical event highlights the connections between the economic and human cost of war in the Middle East and the failure of our government to respond to human needs at home, especially the needs of poor people and people of color.

The government's negligent and often hostile response to hurricane survivors is mirrored by that same government's continued commitment to an illegal, immoral war fought at a staggering cost.

These are twin disasters, and the veterans of wars abroad along with the survivors of Katrina and Rita are joining together for this march and caravan to establish ties of material solidarity between those who oppose the war abroad and the social and economic costs for working people at home.

ADVISORY: Spring Break corresponds to the march. If you plan to get plane tickets to Mobile and from New Orleans, book them early................................................................

NATIONAL WEEK OF CAMPUS ACTIONWeek of March 13-17Students Say NO to War in Iraq!College Not Combat, Troops Out Now!

(*Spring break alternative: Schools on springbreak during March 13-17will hold events the week of March 20)

Third Anniversary of "Shock and Awe"Saturday, March 18, 2006, 11:00 a.m.CIVIC CENTERSan Francisco

Monday, March 20, 2006Youth and Student Day of Resistance to Imperialism

http://www.answercoalition.org/

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New play by local writer Tommi Avicolli Mecca

Following on the heels of his critically acclaimedone-man show last year, local author and activistTommi Avicolli Mecca is debuting his new work, "theaching in god's heart," March 16-18, 8pm and March 19at 5pm at Theatre St. Boniface, 175 GoldenGate/Leavenworth.

The play takes a hard look at the meaning of love andfamily. Sofia, a dutiful daughter who has given upeverything to take care of la famiglia, is suddenlyforced to face the truth about her life of devotion."The play really looks at the conflict that developsbetween 'la via vecchia' (the old ways) of theimmigrant generation and those of the first generationborn here in America. It's the Italian/American storywe don't see on TV or in the movies," says authorAvicolli Mecca.

The four performances of "aching" will benefit fourlocal nonprofits: Housing Rights Committee, DayLaborers Program, St. Boniface Neighborhood Center andthe Family Link. Admission is $10 but no one will beturned away for lack of funds. Bring a check for yourfavorite nonprofit. To reserve tickets, call (415)861-5848.

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SATURDAY, MARCH 18 AND 25VENEZUELA AT THE CROSSROADSWorkers on the Move

Luis Primo, Venezuelan Labor Leader to Speak in San Francisco

The U.S. Hands Off Venezuela Campaign invites you to hear Luis Primo, a central leader of the Venezuelan National Union of Workers (UNT), the new labor federation in Venezuela which has replaced its corrupt predecessor which supported the U.S.-backed attempted coup against President Chavez. Luis Primo will address the antiwar rally on Saturday, March 18 and will speak at a public meeting on Saturday, March 25.

Currently, Primo is a Regional Coordinator for the UNT (Caracas-Miranda), he heads the Union/Political Education for the UNT on the national level, and works with the Ministry of Labor on the Committee on the Recovered Factories. Primo will be running for the National Leadership of the UNT at its upcoming congress this spring.

Hands Off Venezuela has been organized around the principle that the people of Venezuela should be able to determine their own destiny, without the interference of foreign governments, particularly the U.S. government. We have organized numerous educational events to inform people in this country about the important events unfolding in Venezuela so that people here can have an informed position. Without the truth, people are in no position to act.

We hope that Luis Primo's visit to California will be one of many exchanges between Venezuelan and American trade unionists. In addition to speaking in San Francisco, he will be touring the West Coast where he will speak in a half-dozen cities. To make this possible, Hands Off Venezuela Campaign has launched a fund raising drive to cover the many expenses of the tour. Volunteers are needed to help organize the event, and donations of any amount are greatly appreciated.Donations can be sent to: HOV, 4579 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114. Letters of support or endorsements of the tour are also appreciated and can be sent to sfbay@ushov.org.

When and Where:7 pm, Saturday, March 25, 2006ILWU Local 34 Hall, 4 Berry St., San Francisco(Located next door to SBC Park. Take MUNI N line toward SBC Park.)

-How Relevant is Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in the light of over one-hundred years of anthropology and archeology?

-To what extent was “primitive communism” egalitarian in terms of gender relations?

-When in history does individualism start? Is it a product of capitalism or does it go back further?

-Agricultural State Civilizations (The Asiatic Mode of Production) were the most oppressive to women in history. Why was there no women’s movement in the ancient world?

Bruce Lerro has been teaching and writing about the origins of class and gender inequalities for the past fifteen years. He has lectured at New College of California and teaches regularly at Golden Gate University, Dominican University, John F. Kennedy University and Diablo Valley College. He is the author of Power in Eden: Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World, Trafford Press, 2005.

FormatInitial Talk—broadly discussing all four questions

Part I—In Depth Reading and Discussion of each of the Four Questions

Part II –Optional—In Depth Reading and Discussion of Other Chapters in the text.

This will be determined by Bruce and the class participants

Pedagogy

The initial talk will be a lecture with brief discussion at the end of each question

For all four classes in part one there will be assigned readings during the week and each class will be a discussion of the readings. We will discuss clarification as well as substantive questions each week. There will be no lecture.

Required Reading: Power in Eden: Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World

My ApproachI consider myself a Marxist-materialist and I believe that the Marxian tradition must be informed and enriched by over one hundred years of research. I consider Marxism a method rather than a scholastic dogma.What You May Learn-The process of female subordination was a very gradual and had super-structural and psychological components as well as economic-Engels was right about some things and wrong about others-A provocative stage theory about how male dominance originated-There are well-researched conditions under which women will or will not be likely to rebel

We are pleased to announce the kick-off for the organizing of what promises to be a major national mobilization on Saturday, April 29th. Today, each of the initiating groups (see list below) is announcing this mobilization. Our organizations have agreed to work together on this project for several reasons:

The April 29th mobilization will highlight our call for an immediate end to the war on Iraq. We are also raising several other critical issues that are directly connected to one another.

It is time for our constituencies to work more closely: connecting the issues we work on by bringing diverse communities into a common project.

It is important for our movements to help set the agenda for the Congressional elections later in the year. Our unified action in the streets is a vital part of that process.

Please share the April 29th call widely, and please use the links at the end of the call to endorse this timely mobilization and to sign up for email updates.

April 29th Initiating OrganizationsUnited for Peace and JusticeRainbow/PUSH CoalitionNational Organization for WomenFriends of the EarthU.S. Labor Against the WarClimate Crisis CoalitionPeoples' Hurricane Relief FundNational Youth and Student Peace Coalition

A war based on liesSpying, corruption and attacks on civil libertiesKatrina survivors abandoned by government

MARCH FOR PEACE,JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY

End the war in Iraq -Bring all our troops home now!

SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006NEW YORK CITY

Unite for change - let's turn our country around!

The times are urgent and we must act.

Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values, and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change.

No more never-ending oil wars!Protect our civil liberties & immigrant rights. End illegal spying, government corruption and the subversion of our democracy.

ANSWER Coalition: All Out for April 29 in New York City!End Occupation from Iraq to Palestine, to Haiti, and Everywhere!Fight for workers rights, civil rights and civil liberties - uniteagainst racism!

300,000 Came to Washington on Sept. 24

In recent weeks the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has been in the finalstages for planning a national demonstration in Washington DC on April29, 2006. This action was to follow the local and regionaldemonstrations for March 18-19 and youth and student actions scheduledon March 20 on the 3rd anniversary of the criminal bombing, invasionand occupation of Iraq.

On September 24, 2005 more than 300,000 people surrounded the WhiteHouse in the largest mobilization against the Iraq war and occupationsince the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This demonstration wasinitiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in May 2005 and we urged aunited front with other major anti-war coalitions and communities. Wemarched demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq. Wealso stood in solidarity with the Palestinian and Haitian people andothers who are suffering under and resisting occupation. Coming as itdid following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we changed the demands ofthe September 24 protest to include the slogan "From Iraq to NewOrleans, FundPeople's Needs not the War Machine."

During the past several years, and as demonstrated in a powerfuldisplay on September 24, the anti-war movement has grown significantlyin its breadth and depth as the leadership has included the Arab andMuslim community -- those who are among the primary targets of theBush Administration's current war at home and abroad.

The anti-war sentiment inside the United States is rapidly becoming asignificant obstacle to the Bush Administration's war in Iraq. Theanti-war movement has the potential to be a critical deterrent to theU.S. government's aspirations for Empire. At this moment the WhiteHouse and Pentagon are issuing threats and making plans to moveagainst other sovereign countries. Iran and Syria are being targetedas the U.S. seeks to consolidate power in the Middle East.

Simultaneously the Bush administration is working to undermine thegains of the people of Latin America by working totopple thedemocratically elected president of Venezuela and destroy therevolutionary process for social change going on in that country.Likewise it is intensifying the economic war and CIA subversionsagainst Cuba.

We believe that our movement must weld together the broadest, mostdiverse coalition of various sectors and communities into an effectiveforce for change. This requires the inclusion of targeted communitiesand political clarity. The war in Iraq is not simply an aberrationalpolicy of the Bush neo-conservatives. Iraq is emblematic of a largerwar for Empire. It is part of a multi-pronged attack against all thosecountries that refuse to follow the economic, political and militarydictates of the Washington establishment and Wall Street.

This is the foundation of the political program upon which theA.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has organized mass demonstrations in the recentyears. The fact that many hundreds of thousands of peoplehavedemonstrated in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, NewYork and other cities is a testament to the huge progress that hasbeen made in building a new movement on this principled basis.The people of the United States have nothing to gain and everything tolose from the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti andthe threats of new wars and intervention in Syria, Iran, Venezuela,Cuba, the Philippines, North Korea and elsewhere. It has been madecrystal clear in recent weeks that Washington is aggressivelyprosecuting its strategy of total domination of the Middle East. U.S.leaders are seeking to crush all resistance to their colonial agenda,whether from states or popular movements in the region. TheA.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition andthe anti-war movement is raising the demand,"U.S. Out of the Middle East."

At its core, the war for Empire is supported by the Republican Partyand Democratic Party alike, which constitute the twin parties ofmilitarism and war, and this quest for global domination will continueregardless of the outcome of the 2006 election. In fact, leadingDemocrats are attacking Bush for being "soft" on Iran and North Korea.Real hope for turning the tide rests with building a powerful globalmovement of resistance in which the people of the United States standwith their sisters and brothers struggling against imperialism and thenew colonialism.

On the home front the Bush administration is involved in afar-reaching assault against working class communities as mostglaringly evidenced by its criminal and racist negligence towards thepeople of New Orleans and throughout the hurricane ravaged GulfStates. While turning their backs on these communities in the momentsofgreatest need, the U.S. government is now working with the banks anddevelopers who, like vultures, are exploiting mass suffering anddislocation to carry out racist gentrification that only benefits thewealthy. The administration is also working to eviscerate hard-foughtcivil rights and civil liberties, engaging in a widespread campaign ofdomestic spying and wiretapping against the people of the U.S. andother assaults against the First and Fourth Amendments.

In early December 2005, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition filed for permitsfor a national march in Washington DC on April 29, 2006. We werepreparing to announce the April 29 action but in recent days we haveheard from A.N.S.W.E.R. organizers in a number of unions that U.S.Labor Against the War was seeking union endorsements for a call for ananti-war demonstration on the same day in New York City. Having twodemonstrations on April 29 in both Washington D.C. and New York Cityseems to us to be lessadvantageous than having the movement unitebehind one single mobilization. As such, we decided to hold back ourannouncement. Subsequently, the New York City demonstration has beenannounced by a number of organizations. Underscoring the need to havethe largest possible demonstration on April 29, the A.N.S.W.E.R.Coalition has decided to fully mobilize, in all of its chapters andorganizing centers, to bring people to the New York City demonstrationon April 29. The banners and slogans of different coalitions may notbe the same, but it is in the interest of everyone to marchshoulder-to-shoulder against the criminal war in Iraq and the Bushadministration's War for Empire, including its racist, sexist andanti-worker domestic program.

All out for a united, mass mobilization on April 29 in New York City!Click here to become a transportation center in your city or town forthe April 29 demonstration.

PUSH FOR PEACEMEMORIAL DAY KICKOFFMONDAY, MAY 29, 2006GOLDEN GATE PARK, S.F.(Exact location to be announced.)

Welcome to the Official Push for Peace Site! http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q

The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts of able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges, so that all people can participate and be counted.

The Push for Peace logo shows a Navy veteran in a wheelchair with a peace sign on the wheel, with people marching behind him. It can be seen at:

http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=node/71

Just in case we don't get to modify the map before the weekend, I'll just name our proposed stops. We start, of course with Golden Gate Park, from there we head south to Los Angeles. Turning east we move to Phoenix, then on to Albuquerque. Now it's north to Denver, and east to St Louis. North again to Chicago, and east to Detroit. Continue east to Cleveland, and then NYC if all goes well Central Park (Imagine), culminating at the gates of the White House on July 4, 2006

Push For Peace is a collective of veterans, progressive activists, and everyday citizens working together through education, motivation, and truth to bring America's troops home from the war in Iraq and to help bring healing and peace to our nation. The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts of able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges, so that all people can participate and be counted. The Push For Peace effort will include organized rallies and marches, as well as appearances and performances by high-profile speakers and entertainers, to rally the American people and show them we stand united with our fellow citizen and soldier. It is our goal to grow the base of participants each day resulting in a cross-country Push culminating at the gates of the White House on July 4, 2006. Events will be scheduled across the country leading up to the big Push in July. So keep checking the Push calendar for events near you. Mapping it all out...[Website shows map of stops in US en route to DC on July 4, 2006...bw]

This is a tentative and unfinished P4P route and is only a work in progress. The Push is set to leave Golden Gate Park on Memorial Day 2006 (currently working on permits) and then we will Push our way across the country to arrive in DC across from the White House gathering at Lafayette Park (currently working on permits) on July 4th, 2006. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California Las Vegas Nevada Phoenix, Arizona Denver, Colorado Crawford, Texas New Orleans, Louisiana more states pending... Pushing real Democracy! http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=

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FACTSHEETThe Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Deniedhttp://al-awda.org/facts.html...........................................................

TELL BUSH AND CONGRESS: STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS! Please join the online campaign to STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS! YOUR EMERGENCY ACTION IS NEEDED NOW! Send emails to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Annan, Congressional leaders and the media demanding NO WAR ON IRAN!http://stopwaroniran.org/

WHY WE FIGHTA film by Eugene Jarecki[Check out the trailer about this new film.This looks like a very powerful film.]http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonieshttp://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.htmlhttp://www.law.ou.edu/hist/decind.htmlhttp://www.usconstitution.net/declar.htmlhttp://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805195.php

Bill of Rightshttp://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.htmlhttp://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805182.php

2) U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine FlawsBy IAN URBINA and ANDREW W. LEHRENMarch 2, 2006Before the January disaster at the Sago Mine near here, where 12 miners died, the operator had been cited 273 times since 2004. None of the fines exceeded $460, roughly one-thousandth of 1 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the current owner of the mine, the International Coal Group.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/national/02mine.html?hp&ex=1141362000&en=16f66ee262e5d96b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

3) An Open Letter to the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at:http://www.umwa.org/email.shtmlBy Bonnie Weinstein, Socialist Viewpointwww.socialistviewpoint.orgRE: U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine FlawsBy IAN URBINA and ANDREW W. LEHRENMarch 2, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/national/02mine.html?hp&ex=1141362000&en=16f66ee262e5d96b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

6) The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437New York Times EditorialMarch 3, 2006If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/opinion/03fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

7) Sikorsky and Striking Workers Say They Are Dug InBy ALISON LEIGH COWANMarch 3, 2006"...pickets displayed fury when they learned of recent shareholder filings showing how much Mr. David made at a time that hourly workers were being asked to sacrifice for the sake of global competitiveness.In addition to $1.7 million in salary and $3.8 million in bonus pay, Mr. David received $20.8 million in new stock option grants last year and had $26.3 million in pretax gains from exercising old options, the filings showed. He also has $167 million in options he has yet to exercise. Mr. Finger's pay was not included in the disclosures since he is not among United Technologies' five highest-paid executives."http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/nyregion/03sikorsky.html?pagewanted=all

8) Being a PatientRecourse Grows Slim for Immigrants Who Fall IllBy NINA BERNSTEINMarch 3, 2006Mr. Zhao, 50, had been successfully treated for nasal cancer in 2000 at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, which has served the immigrant poor since its founding in 1736. But the rules there had changed, and knowing that he would be asked for payment and that security guards would demand an ID, he had concluded that he could not go back.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/health/03patient.html

9) It's official: class matters A major new study shows that social background determines pupils' success. Does it mean that the government is heading in the wrong direction? Matthew Taylor reports Tuesday February 28, 2006The Guardian http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1719123,00.html

1) TIME OF MADNESS: TIME OF WHORES[Col. Writ. 2/17/06] Copyright '06 Mumia Abu-Jamal

There comes a time in the life of a nation when lines are crossed, and, once crossed, may never be re-crossed again.

In that root of all things Western that was Rome, it was Caesar crossing the river Rubicon. In this New Rome, it is the path to war on a whim; on a lark; on a lie.

It is a kind of imperial fever -- the fatal petulance of kings, for war is the sport of kings.

It matters not why. The "reasons" announced to the world have faded like old photographs in the summer sun; and we learn, years later, that reasons *weren‚t* reasons. They weren‚t even good justifications, yet they sufficed. They stoked emotions, fueled our ignorance, and ignited the war machine -- the US *Wehrmacht* -- and unleashed the dogs of war.

Regimes have been changed; countries bombed; civilians slaughtered for naught; and things are worse than ever; hatreds are deeper than ever. Oh sure; puppets have been installed; even an occasional constitution has been ghost-written. But if you think this is a portent of peace, just remember the so-called 'president' of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who is protected today by a palace guard of armed Americans, so fearful is he of his own countrymen.

While it‚s true that this mad war was forced upon the nation by a narrow neoconservative cabal, it‚s also true that it couldn‚t have happened without the connivance and subservience of the press.

They performed like cheerleaders and water boys of a big game, rather than tribunes or truth-tellers.

And few have been as condemnatory as Robert Fisk, the intrepid journalist writing for *The Independent* (London), who, in his recent book, *The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East* (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), acidly noted:

"And all the while, the American media continued their servile support for the Bush Administration. As I reported in my own paper on 26 January, we were now being deluged with yet more threats from Washington about 'states that sponsor terror.'

"Take Eric Schmitt in *The New York Times* a week ago. He wrote a story about America's decision to 'confront countries that sponsor terrorism.' And his sources? 'Senior defence officials,' 'administration officials,' 'some American intelligence officials,' 'the officials,' 'officials,' 'military officials,' 'terrorist experts' and 'defence officials.' Why not, I asked, 'just let the Pentagon write its own reports in *The New York Times?'" [ p. 927, fn]

Fisk's tone, throughout the book, is a vast and deep rage, at despots, tyrannies, unbridled power, and ignorance. He writes scathingly of the dictatorships both installed by the West, and those imperial powers that predated them. *The Great War for Civilisation* is, above all, an intense work of history, which uses the expensive lessons of the past, to illustrate the follies of the present. He quotes from the Proclamation posted by the military commander of the Spring 1917 invasion of Iraq. Lieutenant General Stanley Maude's words to Baghdad have a cynical and hollow echo in our present ears:

"...Our military operations have as their object the defeat of the enemy and the driving of him from these territories. In order to complete this task I am charged with absolute and supreme control of all regions in which British troops operate; *but our armies do not come into your cities as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators....*" [pp. 140-1]

Sound familiar?

And now, war, like a hungry leech, eats the nation's wealth, consumes a constitution, and deadens the soul. It militarizes millions, appealing to the blind, dumb instinct of obedience.

But also, as people learn of the lies that leads to war, it deepens cynicism, and spreads the seeds of distrust far and wide.

War awakens us, and awakening can be the seedlings of a new social movement that says no to war, and yes to reason, and Life.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

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2) U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine FlawsBy IAN URBINA and ANDREW W. LEHRENMarch 2, 2006Before the January disaster at the Sago Mine near here, where 12 miners died, the operator had been cited 273 times since 2004. None of the fines exceeded $460, roughly one-thousandth of 1 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the current owner of the mine, the International Coal Group.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/national/02mine.html?hp&ex=1141362000&en=16f66ee262e5d96b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

CRAIGSVILLE, W.Va. — In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.

Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days.

With the deaths of 24 miners in accidents in 2006, the enforcement record of the Mine Safety and Health Administration has come under sharp scrutiny, and the agency is likely to face tough questions about its performance at a Senate oversight hearing on Thursday.

"The Bush administration ushered in this desire to develop cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry," said Tony Oppegard, a top official at the agency in the Clinton administration. "Safety has certainly suffered as a result."

A spokesman for the agency, Dirk Fillpot, defended its record, pointing out that last year the coal industry had 22 fatalities, the lowest number in its history.

"Safety is definitely improving," Mr. Fillpot said.

A spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, Carol Raulston, agreed.

"The agency realized in recent years that you can't browbeat operators into improved safety, and this general approach has worked," Ms. Raulston said. "The tragic events of this year have given everyone pause. But I don't think it means we want to abandon what we have found works."

Federal records show that fatalities across all types of mining have stayed relatively stable. In each of the last three years, 55 to 57 miners have died in all areas of mining. Experts say a long-term decline in coal mine fatalities is in part a result of growing mechanization.

Mr. Fillpot also said delinquent cases had not moved to the Treasury Department since 2003 because of computer problems. He could not say when the problems would be corrected. "Referrals from M.S.H.A. to the Treasury Department have been impacted by technical issues on both ends, which we are working to resolve while maintaining an aggressive record on enforcement and collections," he said.

Although the agency has recently trumpeted Congressional plans to raise the maximum penalties, federal records indicate that few major fines are issued at the maximum level. In 2004, the number of major fines issued at maximum level was one in 10, down from one in 5 in 2003.

Since 2001, the median for penalties that exceed $10,000, described as "major fines," has dropped 13 percent, to $21,800 from $25,000.

Also troubling, critics say, is that fines are regularly reduced in negotiations between mine operators and the agency. From 2001 to 2003, more than two-thirds of all major fines were cut from the original amount that the agency proposed. Most of the more recent cases are enmeshed in appeals, so it is impossible to know whether that trend has continued.

"The agency keeps talking about issuing more fines, but it doesn't matter much," said Bruce Dial, a former inspector for the mine safety agency. "The number of citations means nothing when the citations are small, negotiable and most often uncollected."

Before the January disaster at the Sago Mine near here, where 12 miners died, the operator had been cited 273 times since 2004. None of the fines exceeded $460, roughly one-thousandth of 1 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the current owner of the mine, the International Coal Group.

[At a House oversight hearing on Wednesday, agency officials repeatedly cited the frequency of fines against Sago in the year before the accident as proof of aggressive enforcement. Exasperated, Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, replied that maybe those fines had little effect because many were for $60. That point set off applause from audience members.]

"Most fines are so small that they are seen not as deterrents but as the cost of doing business," said Wes Addington, a lawyer with the Appalachian Citizens Law Center in Prestonsburg, Ky., which handles mine safety cases. Using federal records, Mr. Addington released a study in January indicating that since 1995 nearly a third of the active underground mines in Kentucky had failed to pay their fines.

"Operators know that it's cheaper to pay the fine than to fix the problem," Mr. Addington said. "But they also know the cheapest of all routes is to not pay at all. It's pretty galling."

Larry Williams, who now lives in Craigsville, 50 miles east of Charleston, knows this frustration well. In 2002, he was working with a fellow miner, Gary Martin, in a deep mine near Rupert, 25 miles south of here, when the roof collapsed on them. Mr. Martin died instantly, and Mr. Williams was trapped for more than four hours under several thousand pounds of rock that crushed his pelvis and both legs.

The men had been pillaring, or second mining, which involves extracting the last remaining coal in tunnels by scraping it from the coal pillars used to hold up the roof. This method is considered extremely dangerous. Federal regulations aim to reduce the risk.

In this case, federal investigators found that the regulations were not followed. The operators were fined $165,000. Those fines have not been paid, even though the mine owner, Midland Trail Resources, which did not reply to requests for comment, remains in business, according to state records.

"It makes me mad," said Mr. Williams, 50, who is paralyzed through much of his right side. "One dead and another man's life ruined, and they pay nothing? It just doesn't make sense."

On Feb. 14, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, introduced a measure to raise the maximum penalty that the mine safety agency can assess for failing to eliminate violations that cause death or serious injury, to $500,000, from the current $60,000.

The law would also prohibit administrative law judges from reducing fines for violations deemed flagrant or habitual.

Ellen Smith, editor of Mine Safety and Health News, an independent newsletter that covers the industry, said that although the law was a positive step, one regulation that continued to need attention allowed fines to be lowered for smaller or financially troubled mines.

"The result of that provision is that it helps keep some habitual offenders in business," Ms. Smith said.

Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said changes in the law were vital but so were changes in the agency. "If you don't have enforcement along with a strong law, then you don't have a law," Mr. Roberts said. "The current agency mentality is to cooperate with mine operators rather than watchdog them, and safety suffers as a result."

Even when Congress passes strong safety laws, the agency can write regulations that work around them. In 2004, for example, after years of pressure from mine operators, regulators wrote a rule that let mines use conveyor belts not just for moving coal but also to draw in fresh air from outside. A law already existed preventing such safety regulations because of concerns that in the event of a fire, the belts would carry flames and deadly gases directly to the work area or vital evacuation routes.

Though the investigation is not complete, many experts say this is probably what occurred at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, W.Va., where a fire left two miners dead on Jan 21.

Mr. Fillpot said his agency was revising the regulations on imposing penalties. He also pointed to civil suits filed by the agency in what he said was an increasing effort to force operators to pay millions of dollars in unpaid penalties.

"You can expect to see more of these types of efforts from us in the coming months," Mr. Fillpot said.

Mr. Williams, the miner who is partly paralyzed, remains skeptical.

"All I know is the roof collapsed only days after a federal inspector looked right at those pillars and saw that the operator was having us do illegal things," he said. "In these mines, laws don't matter."

Ian Urbina reported from Craigsville, W.Va., and Andrew W. Lehren from New York.

I felt compelled to write this letter to you when I read the front-page article in the New York Times listed above.

My mother was born and raised in Kentucky and I grew up hearing about the courage of mine workers all my life. So, I have been following the news stories about mine disasters.

I wrote an article for Socialist Viewpoint (I am on the Editorial Board of the magazine) on the 2002 Quecreek mine disaster that, fortunately, turned out much more positively than the recent terrible outcomes. Here is a link to that article.

Down in the Quecreek MinesBy Bonnie Weinsteinhttp://socialistviewpoint.org/sept_02/sept_02_14.html

In my opinion, in light of the NYTs article that exposes the lack of enforcement against mine owners for their blatant disregard for the safety of mine workers, the American labor movement should look at these recent deaths as murder in the first degree--and, along with mine owners, the entire U.S. government should be charged with the crime for allowing this situation to continue.

I am 61 years-old. I remember when San Francisco was a "union town" and proud of it when I came here in 1966. And, before that I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York--another "union town."

That meant that the pay was decent--even in non-union jobs! See, when union workers get paid well, that forces the non-union employers to have to compete a little more. It also has othereffects on the lives of workers. A town with a high percentageof union workers tends to have lower rents or at least somerent-control laws and more affordable housing. Such labor communities also tend to have better schools, etc. because bosses and landlords know that there is a force out there that can unite and fight and be very effective!

That's the kind of competition we want to have occur in the labor movement. Not a race to the bottom throughconcession after concession! But to turn the tides and begin a race to the top for all workers, victory after victory!

The NYT article shows that this government is in cooperationonly with the bosses and are waging a new offensive in their war against workers.

It's time for the labor leaders of this country to stand up in unison and say "enough is enough!" The refusal of themine owners to comply with the safety rules and theFederal Government's blatant refusal to force the ownersto comply with these rules, or even to collect the fines againstthe violation of these rules, will not be tolerated! We will not send the children who want to follow in their father's footsteps back down into the mines, to risk the same danger their father's faced, for minimum wage and a deadlywork environment, while the mine owners and the government that represents only them, gets away with murder, and as the industry rakes in record profits off those very lives of the fallen?

Are we going to stand by and watch with sorry expressions on our faces as more die in preventable disasters in all workplaces; are we going to stand by while tens of thousands of auto workers get thrown to the wolves after years of dedication and hard work? They are going to loose their lives as they knew it!

Are we going to force the top tiers to continue to devour both their children just joining the work force and their retired parents in order for "some" to keep their own jobs andmeager, if any, benefits?

We need to go back to the tactics that worked for workers in the '30s. Some of the Auto Workers are talking about this need quite eloquently. Here is a link to their sites:

http://futureoftheunion.com/

http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/

Work to Rule

They have a concept of "Work to Rule" that could be very effective in the mines. Simply, workers follow all the safety rules, which builds confidence in the worker's ability to have control, not only over their own safety on the job, but, in their ability to act effectively in theirown defense on all fronts, throughout all industry,through unity of purpose and solidarity in action.

I know that I'm nobody or worse, a socialist. But I was raised to respect all those who toil to provide all the things that we have--our cars, houses, the factories themselves--and to respect workers--not the bosses, who contribute nothingto production, except figuring out different ways to rob workers and to increase profits.

Workers have both the knowledge and the knowhow to carry out production all on their own--more safely and more efficiently--if left to their own devices and for their mutual benefit.

Something's got to give. It can't and won't stay as it is. Unionrepresentation is a third of what it was in the 1950s in the American work force.

We are going back to the dark ages! It's time for the American labor movementto see the light! Unite and Fight!

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinsteinwww.socialistviewpoint.org

P.S. There is more information about "Work to Rule"in our latest issue at: www.socialistviewpoint.org

We will continue our coverage of all worker's issues.Contact us for a free sample of our magazine at:socialistviewpoint@pacbell.net

It is mind-boggling for us to be here, now, at this late hour, with Leonard Peltier still in chains.

Books have been written; documentaries have been produced; congresspeople have joined his freedom campaign -- all for naught. For Leonard Peltier, a former leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), is still not free!

That, to anyone with a soul, is a damned shame.

Many Peltier supporters put their trust in a politician named Bill Clinton, who told them that when he got elected he "wouldn‚t forget" about the popular Native American leader.

Their trust (like that of so many others) was betrayed once Clinton gained his office, and the FBI protested. In the waning days of his presidency, he issued pardons to folks like Mark Rich, and other wealthy campaign contributors. Leonard Peltier was left in his chains!

I won‚t re-state the obvious: Leonard‚s innocence; the blatantly unfair trial; the crooked tricks that led to his extradition -- others may do that.

What is needed is more *support*, not from two-faced politicians; but from the People -- the many, who, like you and I, know injustice when we see it!

Join the movement to free Leonard "Gwarth-ee-lass" (or "He Who Leads the People")!

In his book, Peltier tells us of the U.S. government's war against AIM, and other radical groups. His writings, which predated the events of 9/11, shows us that repressive tactics didn't begin then:

"They hid behind their usual cloak of 'national security' to do their dirty work. Their first tactic: forget the law, the law's for suckers, subvert the law at will to get your man, however innocent he may be; suborn the whole legal and judicial systems; lie whenever and wherever you have to to keep the focus of inquiry on your victims, not on your own crimes.

I have to admit, they succeeded brilliantly. In the name of Law, they violated every law on the books, and, in their deliberate strategy of putting me -- and how man other innocents? -- away in a cell or a grave, they turned the Constitution of the United States into pulp fiction." [pp. 95-6]

What Leonard needs is a renewed, revitalized, powerful people's movement fighting for his freedom.

Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark., had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on Sept. 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed.

Though her doctor and two nurses joined in the request, her lawsuit says, the guard in charge of her refused.

"She was shackled all through labor," said Ms. Nelson's lawyer, Cathleen V. Compton. "The doctor who was delivering the baby made them remove the shackles for the actual delivery at the very end."

Despite sporadic complaints and occasional lawsuits, the practice of shackling prisoners in labor continues to be relatively common, state legislators and a human rights group said. Only two states, California and Illinois, have laws forbidding the practice.

The New York Legislature is considering a similar bill. Ms. Nelson's suit, which seeks to ban the use of restraints on Arkansas prisoners during labor and delivery, is to be tried in Little Rock this spring.

The California law, which came into force in January, was prompted by widespread problems, said Sally J. Lieber, a Democratic assemblywoman from Mountain View.

"We found this was going on in some institutions in California and all over the United States," Ms. Lieber said. "It presents risks not only for the inmate giving birth, but also for the infant."

Corrections officials say they must strike a balance between security and the well-being of the pregnant woman and her child.

"Though these are pregnant women," said Dina Tyler, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, "they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent in nature. There have been instances when we've had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery."

Dee Ann Newell, who has taught classes in prenatal care and parenting for female prisoners in Arkansas for 15 years, said she found the practice of shackling women in labor appalling.

"If you have ever seen a woman have a baby," Ms. Newell said, "you know we squirm. We move around."

Twenty-three state corrections departments, along with thefederal Bureau of Prisons, have policies that expressly allow restraints during labor, according to a report by Amnesty International U.S.A. on Wednesday.

The corrections departments of five states, including Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, the report found, prohibit the practice. The remaining states do not have laws or formal policies, although some corrections departments told the group that they did not use restraints as a matter of informal practice.

Many states justify restraints because the prisoners remain escape risks, though there have apparently been no instances of escape attempts by women in labor.

About 5 percent of female prisoners arrive pregnant, according to a 1999 report by the Justice Department. The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, estimates that 40,000 women are admitted to the nation's prisons each year, suggesting that 2,000 babies are born to American prisoners annually.

Illinois enacted the first law forbidding some restraints during labor, in 2000. "Under no circumstances," it says, "may leg irons or shackles or waist shackles be used on any pregnant female prisoner who is in labor."

Before that, said Gail T. Smith, the executive director of Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers, the standard practice was to chain the prisoner to a hospital bed. "What was common," Ms. Smith said, "was one wrist and one ankle."

The California law prohibits shackling prisoners by the wrists or ankles during labor, delivery and recovery. Until recently, prisoners from the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, Calif., were routinely shackled to their beds after giving birth at the nearby Madera Community Hospital.

"These women are mostly in for minor crimes and don't pose a flight risk," said Ms. Lieber, who met with 120 pregnant women at the prison in August. "Madera Community Hospital is in one of the most remote parts of California. It's hard to walk to a filling station, much less a bus stop."

Washington State has also forbidden the use of shackles during labor, though as a matter of corrections department policy rather than law. Pamela Simpson, a California nurse, described in an e-mail message to Ms. Lieber the practice in Washington before the policy was changed.

"Here this young woman was in active labor," Ms. Simpson wrote, "handcuffed to the armed guard, wearing shackles, in her orange outfit that was dripping wet with amniotic fluid. Her age: 15!"

Arkansas has resisted an outright ban on restraints, though Ms. Nelson's case may change that.

Ms. Nelson was serving time for identity fraud and writing bad checks when she gave birth at age 30. She weighed a little more than 100 pounds, and her baby, it turned out, weighed nine and a half pounds.

The experience of giving birth without anesthesia while largely immobilized has left her with lasting back pain and damage to her sciatic nerve, according to her lawsuit against prison officials and a private company, Correctional Medical Services.

Ms. Nelson, now known as Shawanna Lumsey, and lawyers for the defendants did not respond to requests for comment. In court papers, the defendants denied that they had caused any harm to Ms. Nelson.

Partly as a consequence of Ms. Nelson's suit, Arkansas has started using softer, more flexible nylon restraints for prisoners deemed to be security risks. They are removed, Ms. Tyler said, during the actual delivery.

Ms. Newell considers that slight progress for the approximately 50 women in Arkansas prisons and jails who give birth each year.

"Childbirth should be a sacred event," said Ms. Newell, a senior justice fellow at the Soros Foundation. "Just because they're prisoners doesn't mean they shouldn't get the usual care."

Dawn H., an Arkansas prisoner who delivered a baby in custody in 2002, said her guard wanted to shackle her to the bed.

"Fortunately," she said, "I had a very wonderful nurse who told the guard I was in her care. I was her patient. And no one was going to shackle me." (She asked that her full name not be used because her employer did not know about her imprisonment for passing bad checks.)

The Wisconsin Corrections Department has also recently changed its approach, after a state newspaper, The Post-Crescent of Appleton, reported on the issue in January. The department said it would end the use of restraints during labor, delivery and recovery.

Merica Erato, serving time for negligent homicide after a car accident, went through labor with chains around her ankles in Fond du Lac, Wis., in May, her husband, Steve, said in an interview.

"It is unbelievable that in this day and age a child is born to a woman in shackles," Mr. Erato said. "It sounds like something from slavery 200 years ago."

In most cases, people who have studied the issue said, women are shackled because prison rules are unthinkingly exported to a hospital setting.

"This is the perfect example of rule-following at the expense of common sense," said William F. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. "It's almost as stupid as shackling someone in a coma."

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6) The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437New York Times EditorialIf current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.March 3, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/opinion/03fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

It has been a long time since this country heard a call to organized lawbreaking on this big a scale. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation's largest, urged parishioners on Ash Wednesday to devote the 40 days of Lent to fasting, prayer and reflection on the need for humane reform of immigration laws. If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.

The cardinal's focus of concern is H.R. 4437, a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York. This grab bag legislation, which was recently passed by the House, would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" in a way that could theoretically include working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor's baby. Similar language appears in legislation being considered by the Senate this week.

The enormous influx of illegal immigrants and the lack of a coherent federal policy to handle it have prompted a jumble of responses by state and local governments, stirred the passions of the nativist fringe, and reinforced anxieties since 9/11. Cardinal Mahony's defiance adds a moral dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics. "As his disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the church," he said.

The cardinal is right to argue that the government has no place criminalizing the charitable impulses of private institutions like his, whose mission is to help people with no questions asked. The Los Angeles Archdiocese, like other religious organizations across the country, runs a vast network of social service programs offering food and emergency shelter, child care, aid to immigrants and refugees, counseling services, and computer and job training. Through Catholic Charities and local parishes, the church is frequently the help of last resort for illegal immigrants in need. It should not be made an arm of the immigration police as well.

Cardinal Mahony's declaration of solidarity with illegal immigrants, for whom Lent is every day, is a startling call to civil disobedience, as courageous as it is timely. We hope it forestalls the day when works of mercy become a federal crime.

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7) Sikorsky and Striking Workers Say They Are Dug InBy ALISON LEIGH COWANMarch 3, 2006"...pickets displayed fury when they learned of recent shareholder filings showing how much Mr. David made at a time that hourly workers were being asked to sacrifice for the sake of global competitiveness.In addition to $1.7 million in salary and $3.8 million in bonus pay, Mr. David received $20.8 million in new stock option grants last year and had $26.3 million in pretax gains from exercising old options, the filings showed. He also has $167 million in options he has yet to exercise. Mr. Finger's pay was not included in the disclosures since he is not among United Technologies' five highest-paid executives."http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/nyregion/03sikorsky.html?pagewanted=all

STRATFORD, Conn., March 2 — With a heavy snow pelting them, a ring of pickets stood outside Sikorsky Aircraft's main plant here today, as they have since a week ago Monday, and made it clear that the company's managers were not the only ones digging in for a long fight.

Roughly 3,600 teamsters from Local 1150, many of whom build helicopters and other critical parts for the company's military and commercial clients, walked off the job on Feb. 20 in a dispute over the company's plan to charge them more for their health care benefits.

Since then, both sides have warned that the fight could drag on. On Tuesday, at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, George David, the chief executive of Sikorsky's corporate parent, United Technologies Corporation, told Wall Street analysts that the company had "stood firm" in previous showdowns with employees over escalating health-care costs and "we will stand firm on this one."

Company spokesmen have also expressed confidence that the company can meet its commitments to clients by shifting work away from the headquarters and four other plants hit with walkouts — in West Haven, Bridgeport and Shelton, and in West Palm Beach, Fla. — and using salaried personnel, which it is doing.

Meanwhile, a union Web site is already advertising a March 11 party at a nearby club in Ansonia called Snooker's to lift the morale of those walking the line.

Pickets said they would rather be working the line than walking it but felt they had little choice.

"This isn't only about us," said Bruce Peters, a flight technician who works with his son, Brett, at the plant. Today, they were one of several father-son teams sharing picket duty and umbrellas. "This is a nationwide problem with medical care," said the elder Mr. Peters.

Mr. Peters acknowledged that the timing could be better, given the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They do depend on our aircraft," he said, "but it's not our fault that we're out here."

He said the company's management "was trying to pass all the burden for health care on to the workers so people like George David and the president of Sikorsky, Steve Finger, can reap all the benefits."

He and his fellow pickets displayed fury when they learned of recent shareholder filings showing how much Mr. David made at a time that hourly workers were being asked to sacrifice for the sake of global competitiveness.

In addition to $1.7 million in salary and $3.8 million in bonus pay, Mr. David received $20.8 million in new stock option grants last year and had $26.3 million in pretax gains from exercising old options, the filings showed. He also has $167 million in options he has yet to exercise. Mr. Finger's pay was not included in the disclosures since he is not among United Technologies' five highest-paid executives.

On Wednesday, Bud Grebey, a Sikorsky spokesman, said that the company had made the teamsters "a very competitive offer in totality," especially considering salary increases and other incentives the company put on the table.

Under the company's plan, workers, who now make $18.59 to $32.50 an hour, would receive annual raises of 3.5 percent. That works out to be 11 percent with compound interest by the end of the three-year contract, on top of a one-time $2,000 ratification bonus.

But several workers said that that was not enough to compensate them for having to accept higher weekly premiums, higher co-payments and, for the first time, as much as 20 percent on many doctor's bills that the union says are now covered by the company. "All increases we get will be eaten up by the medical costs," said the elder Mr. Peters.

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8) Being a PatientRecourse Grows Slim for Immigrants Who Fall IllBy NINA BERNSTEINMarch 3, 2006Mr. Zhao, 50, had been successfully treated for nasal cancer in 2000 at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, which has served the immigrant poor since its founding in 1736. But the rules there had changed, and knowing that he would be asked for payment and that security guards would demand an ID, he had concluded that he could not go back...Special concerns arise among different ethnic groups. Korean parents in Staten Island mistakenly fear that their children will forfeit future chances for a college loan, said Jinny J. Park, a health specialist at Korean Community Services. And mothers at the Latin American Integration Center in Queens worry unnecessarily that free medical care will later mean their children's military conscription. As one, Melosa, put it, "Everything we receive from the government is like giving my children away little by little" to the Army.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/health/03patient.html

When Ming Qiang Zhao felt ill last summer, he lay awake nights in the room he shared with other Chinese restaurant workers in Brooklyn. Though he had worked in New York for years, he had no doctor to call, no English to describe his growing uneasiness.

Mr. Zhao, 50, had been successfully treated for nasal cancer in 2000 at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, which has served the immigrant poor since its founding in 1736. But the rules there had changed, and knowing that he would be asked for payment and that security guards would demand an ID, he had concluded that he could not go back.

So Mr. Zhao went to an unlicensed healer in Manhattan's Chinatown and came away with three bags of unlabeled white pills.

A week later, his roommates, fellow illegal immigrants from Fujian Province in China, heard him running to and from the toilet all night. In the street the next day, July 6, he collapsed.

Immigrants have long been on the fringes of medical care. But in the last decade, and especially since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, steps to include them have faltered in a political climate increasingly hostile to those who face barriers of language, cost and fear of penalties like deportation, say immigrant health experts, providers and patients. More and more immigrants are delaying care or retreating into a parallel universe of bootleg remedies and unlicensed practitioners.

Last year, about 80 bills in 20 states sought to cut noncitizens' access to health care or other services, or to require benefit agencies to tell the authorities about applicants with immigration violations. Arizona voters approved such a requirement in 2004 with Proposition 200. Virginia has barred adults without proof of citizenship or lawful presence from state and local benefits. Maryland's governor excluded lawful immigrant children and pregnant women from a state medical program for which they had been eligible.

Most proposed measures were not adopted, but new versions are expected. Ballot initiatives modeled on Arizona's Proposition 200 are circulating in California and Colorado. And in December, the United States House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill that would make "unlawful presence"in this country a felony and redefine "criminal alien smuggling" to include helping any immigrant without legal status.

"We've seen a real rise in anti-immigration measures across the country," said Tanya Broder, a public benefits lawyer in Oakland, Calif., for the National Immigration Law Center, "and it's engendered confusion and fear that prevent immigrant families from getting the care they need."

Some who had been drawn into medical treatment by outreach efforts have retreated, like Mr. Zhao, fearing the harder line toward immigrants, especially those without money or proper papers. Even legal immigrants and parents of children with legal status are more skittish about their health care, scared that medical bills and public medical insurance can hurt their chances for citizenship, bar relatives from coming to the United States or break up their families.

"I heard that if you go to the emergency room or go to the doctor, they were going to deport you," said Alejandra, a mother from Colombia living in Queens, referring to a rule proposed in 2004 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would have made hospitals report the immigration status of emergency-room patients in exchange for more federal money. "So then my four children are going to be without me because I don't have documents here."

The proposal did not pass, but like many of the proposed rules immigrants hear about on television or from neighbors, its chilling effects lasted.

Restrictive bills are part of what supporters describe as a movement to end tolerance for the country's estimated 11 million illegal residents.

"It's certainly an effort to make them go back," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group calling for fewer immigrants and stricter enforcement of immigration laws. "It will never be acceptable for people to break our laws and then expect taxpayers to provide health care."

Almost by definition, the most fearful immigrants are the least likely to talk. The Colombian mother in Queens, however, was among 75 immigrant parents, both legal and illegal, who were interviewed in depth by researchers from the New York Academy of Medicine for a study to be released later this year, with the guarantee that their real names would be withheld.

What emerges from the transcripts, and from dozens of other interviews conducted by The New York Times with patients, health-care providers and experts on immigration, is a picture not only of heightened anxiety but also of immigrants who are primed to flee rather than fight for help from a system that even the native-born often find baffling and rude.

For Nadege, pregnant and in pain when she sought treatment at Queens Hospital Center, a public hospital, the defining moment was a snub by a fellow Haitian who had been summoned to interpret. "She said to me, 'Don't come here saying that you have a bellyache: no one is going to stay with you the entire day,' " Nadege recalled.

"I cried," she said. "I picked up my belongings and left. Even if I was dying that day, I wouldn't go back."

Lard and Vodka, Not Doctors

No one is suggesting that hospitals and clinics are seeing a decline in immigrant patients. On the contrary, as a decade of record immigration continues at an estimated annual clip of 1.2 million newcomers, the number of patients who speak little or no English is growing everywhere. And some hospitals and clinics are trying harder than ever to at least meet language needs.

But even in New York, a gateway of immigration, a national climate that makes immigrant patients more timid also emboldens some front-line workers to bar the way.

"If you have one renegade public-benefits worker who thinks they should be discouraging access because they believe it's a drain on taxes, the word on the street is it's too much of a hassle to apply," said Adam Gurvitch, director of health advocacy for the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella group for more than 150 immigrant organizations.

Problems getting insurance sometimes lead to risky decisions about children's health care. A legal immigrant from Russia, Oksana, confessed to academy researchers that she had delayed her daughter's vaccinations for months, keeping her out of school until she could borrow $300 to pay for them. Melosa, of Mexico, had so many problems with state-subsidized insurance that when her severely asthmatic son ran a high fever she resorted to rubs of pig lard and carbonate, instead of taking him to a doctor.

Vera, a Brooklyn mother from Belarus, used vodka rubs and borrowed medications when her daughter was delirious with fever from the flu. "We couldn't go to the doctor without medical insurance," she said.

In the end, immigrants often return to mainstream care in dire need, only to have their chaotic medical histories compounded by a beleaguered system whose costliest medical technology is no substitute for timely treatment. In Mr. Zhao's case, an ambulance took him, unconscious, to a bankrupt hospital system where his life hung in the balance for weeks, and where one of his roommates, a 19-year-old waiter with uneven English, served as the interpreter.

"No money, no ID, no good English," said the waiter, Hong Chung. "What you going to do? Nobody pay attention to us."

Mr. Zhao was in a coma when his brother, Ming Tong, 49, and Fujianese friends came to the hospital, clutching the unlabeled pills, which had been described as herb-based remedies for high blood sugar, high blood pressure and insomnia.

Mr. Chung remembers pleading, "If you find out the name of the ingredients, maybe he won't have to die." But he said doctors told him that the hospital was unable to do such an analysis. The hospital, St. Mary's in Brooklyn, was scheduled to close after more than a century serving the immigrant poor. St. John's in Queens, where Mr. Zhao was transferred for more tests 12 days later, was up for sale. Their parent organization, St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers, the largest Roman Catholic hospital system in New York State, had just filed for bankruptcy protection.

At struggling hospitals, interpretation can seem like a luxury, despite longstanding federal and state laws requiring equal language access and studies showing that it cuts cost by improving quality. Few hospitals have laboratories capable of analyzing underground remedies.

"With regular drugs, we know what the side effects and interactions are," said Dr. Sarvesh Parikh, a resident at St. John's, who wrote a note in Mr. Zhao's chart about his roommates' account of the pills. "About these kinds of pills, we don't know anything."

The larger mystery was why Mr. Zhao, a thin, quiet, frugal man, had gone without medical care instead of returning to Bellevue. In 2000, seven years after he and his brother arrived on American shores, jammed into the fetid hold of a smuggling ship, Bellevue doctors had diagnosed and eradicated his nasal cancer.

But even when treatment is a medical triumph, without sick pay or a safety net it can be personally devastating. In Mr. Zhao's case, the effects of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy left him unable to work. His wife and son in China had counted on his income, and without it, she divorced him to marry another man. Then staggering medical bills arrived at the apartment that he and his brother shared with six roommates.

Medicaid reimburses hospitals for emergency care of the poor, regardless of immigration status. Outside of emergency care, however, illegal immigrants like Mr. Zhao are ineligible for Medicaid; in two-thirds of states, so are most legal noncitizens, no matter how indigent.

James Saunders, a spokesman for Bellevue, like Debby Cohen, a spokeswoman for St. John's, said confidentiality laws barred discussion of Mr. Zhao's case. But Mr. Saunders emphasized that Bellevue has a mandate not to turn anyone away because of immigration status or lack of money, "and an obligation to the federal government to collect what we can."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, about the same time Bellevue security guards began demanding ID cards, clerks started collecting sliding-scale fees from the uninsured. Mr. Zhao was charged $20 per visit, then $150 for a CAT scan. Destitute, intimidated, unable to keep borrowing such sums, and unaware that the fees could be waived, his brother said, Mr. Zhao gave up on Bellevue in 2002.

"The doctor said that he was supposed to come back every two months, every three months, every six months, until the end of his life," Ming Tong Zhao recalled through an interpreter. "But he couldn't go back, because he couldn't pay."

By the time Mr. Zhao again ended up in a hospital, he was in a coma; just his intensive care bed, at St. Mary's and then at St. John's, cost Medicaid $5,400 a day. For more than a month, a parade of doctors did spinal taps, EKG's, CAT scans and an M.R.I.; infused him with antibiotics, anticonvulsants and blood thinners; and placed him on a ventilator. Tests showed diabetes and high blood pressure, though their role in his collapse was uncertain.

Ming Tong, visiting between his work renovating kitchens in Manhattan, could not get a clear answer about what was wrong with his brother and was afraid to press. "You understand," he said, "people in the United States without legal status don't want to cause too much trouble."

Afraid to Seek Help

Whether legal or illegal — and many immigrant families include members in both categories — noncitizens are fearful of asking for too much. Many echo Catalina, a Queens woman from Colombia who hesitated to sign her toddler up for the free speech therapy urged by his pediatrician because she and her husband had a pending application for a green card. "It scared us," the woman said, "because if you are asking for residency, you have to show you are capable of living here without any help."

Noncitizens are two to three times more likely to lack health insurance than citizens, studies show, and the gap has widened, even for children. Even legal immigrants qualified for government medical coverage often think twice about accepting it.

Special concerns arise among different ethnic groups. Korean parents in Staten Island mistakenly fear that their children will forfeit future chances for a college loan, said Jinny J. Park, a health specialist at Korean Community Services. And mothers at the Latin American Integration Center in Queens worry unnecessarily that free medical care will later mean their children's military conscription. As one, Melosa, put it, "Everything we receive from the government is like giving my children away little by little" to the Army.

The changing political climate makes it hard to separate myth from reality. Laws codify disapproval of government aid for noncitizens. An immigrant deemed "likely to become a public charge," for example, is to be denied a green card as undesirable. The 1996 welfare overhaul barred most legal immigrants who arrived after August of that year from receiving federal Medicaid until they become citizens, and the state-by-state patchwork of exceptions is confusing.

Even New York, which extends Medicaid to lawful immigrants and to low-income children regardless of status, reserves the right to sue their sponsoring relatives for reimbursement, though it is not doing so.

Those who do apply for public insurance discover a stark gap between the enthusiastic multilingual marketing of H.M.O.'s and the Kafkaesque task of getting and keeping an insurance card that works. They tell of learning only in the doctor's office that a sick child's card is not valid and then being turned away for lack of money.

The public health implications alarm James R. Tallon, president of the United Hospital Fund, a nonprofit policy group in New York. "Anything that keeps anyone away from the health system makes no sense at all," Mr. Tallon said, noting that early detection is crucial in case of Avian flu or bioterrorism. "It takes one epidemic to change everyone's attitudes about this."

In some cases, the change in attitude comes instead from immigrants who arrived with high expectations of American medicine and now yearn for the kind they left back home. Yelena Deykin, a legal refugee who came from Ukraine in 2000, said that if she had the money, she would take her son back there for treatment of his thyroid ailment. "Our doctor not like your doctor," she said. "Altruism — not business."

In Mr. Zhao's hospital room, visitors began to hope for his recovery. After three weeks, he seemed responsive when they called his name. So it came as a shock when Mr. Chung, the waiter acting as a translator, relayed a new request from a doctor: Would they agree to let Mr. Zhao die?

Mr. Chung, who would soon return to work at an Asian restaurant in South Charleston, W.Va., translated the request for a "do not resuscitate" order as best he could, and drew his own conclusions. "Maybe some people don't like Chinese," he said.

Ming Tong refused to sign the order, then telephoned his brother's son, in China, and asked him to decide. The son wept. Now 23, he had been a child of 9 when he last saw his father. As they discussed it again on Aug. 9, Mr. Zhao grew agitated. He tried to pull free of his tubes and his oxygen mask, as though he wanted to speak. Instead, despite resuscitation efforts, he died without a word.

In the End, No Answers

"The one thing that he wanted the most in his life was to see his son again, and he didn't even get that chance," Ming Tong said. "Why did he die? I asked the doctors. They didn't know. They didn't answer me."

For immigrants, the divide of language and culture often deepens after death. In this case, doctors requested an autopsy. Ming Tong refused, in keeping with Chinese tradition. Doctors certified the death as natural, not mentioning the pills. The official cause of death was lobar pneumonia and sepsis, secondary to diabetes and hypertension — acute lung and blood infections, that can attack patients on ventilators, but whose origins in this case are unknown, and chronic conditions that weaken the system.

On Aug. 13, The World Journal, a Chinese-language newspaper circulating to 300,000 in North America, described Mr. Zhao's death as part of a pattern of fatal misdiagnoses and wrong medications given by unlicensed practitioners on East Broadway, the thoroughfare of Fujianese Chinatown.

But at the Medical Examiner's Office, where an inquiry could have been ordered, no one reads Chinese and no one was aware of questions about the case. Permission for cremation was granted the next day.

Most of Mr. Zhao's possessions fit into his coffin. The rest, including the pills, were discarded. But a woman going to his funeral called The New York Times and accused an unlicensed practitioner on East Broadway of mishandling Mr. Zhao's case.

A decade ago, the Chinese American Medical Society helped spur a short-lived state crackdown on a Chinatown subculture of fake doctors. But "there are more illegal doctors than ever now," said Dr. Peter Fong, an ophthalmologist and a former vice president of the society. They are not just offering herbal supplements, for which no license is required, he said, but practicing medicine without a license — a crime.

To John C. Liu, the first Asian-American elected to the New York City Council, the reason is obvious: "What empowers the quacks is lack of access to health care."

Chinese workers scattered in jobs throughout New York and across the country periodically return to East Broadway, the hub of Fujianese life in the United States, to find health care — of a sort.

No. 52, where Mr. Chung says he accompanied Mr. Zhao last summer and saw the dispensing of the pills, is stacked with self-styled clinics. One thrives at the back of a basement computer store; another features $30 pregnancy sonograms and a crookedly lettered sign for "precise dental art."

The establishment of Yu Yuan Zhang, 50, where Mr. Chung said he and Mr. Zhao went, has operated for 11 years. Near drawers of Chinese herbs hangs a New York State medical license — in someone else's name. Visibly nervous, Mr. Zhang denied that any pills he dispensed could cause harm. "They're made in China," he said, "available all over, in the street."

By then, the only evidence left of Mr. Zhao's 12 years in the United States were bills, ashes and a death certificate that his brother could not read. Pressed about the case, the practitioner did not hesitate.

"There is no such person," he said. "There is no Ming Qiang Zhao."

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9) It's official: class matters A major new study shows that social background determines pupils' success. Does it mean that the government is heading in the wrong direction? Matthew Taylor reports Tuesday February 28, 2006The Guardian http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1719123,00.html

It is a familiar scene: mum and dad hunched at the kitchen table, poring over Ofsted reports and brochures, trying to fathom which is the best school for their child. But a new report, obtained by Education Guardian, suggests that these well-meaning parents, and thousands like them, are looking in the wrong place. Instead of trying to decode inspectors' reports or work out whether academies are better than voluntary-aided schools or trusts superior to community comprehensives, they need look no further than the average earnings among parents.

A study by academics at University College London (UCL) and Kings College London has given statistical backbone to the view that the overwhelming factor in how well children do is not what type of school they attend- but social class. It appears to show what has often been said but never proved: that the current league tables measure not the best, but the most middle-class schools; and that even the government's "value-added" tables fail to take account of the most crucial factor in educational outcomes - a pupil's address.

The report, which uses previously unreleased information from the Department for Education and Skills, matches almost 1 million pupils with their individual postcode and exam scores at 11 and 15.

This unprecedented project has revealed that a child's social background is the crucial factor in academic performance, and that a school's success is based not on its teachers, the way it is run, or what type of school it is, but, overwhelmingly, on the class background of its pupils.

"These are very important findings, which should change the way parents, pupils and politicians think about schools," says Richard Webber, professor at UCL. "This is the first time we have been able to measure the precise impact of a child's social background on their educational performance, as well as the importance of a school's intake on its standing in the league tables."

The findings come at a pivotal time in education with the government determined to push through its education reforms in a new schools bill, expected to be published today. If it is successful, all primary and secondary schools will be encouraged to become independent trusts with control over their own admissions. But many critics have argued that the government should be introducing more rigorous controls over admissions - to ensure as many schools as possible have a balanced intake of middle- and working-class children.

The study found that, whatever their background, children do better the more "middle-class" the school they attend, and also that more than 50% of a school's performance is accounted for by the social make-up of its pupils.

In affluent areas, such as Dukes Avenue, Muswell Hill, in north London, and Lammas Park Road, Ealing, west London, the study would expect 67% of 11-year-olds to achieve level 5 in the national English tests and 94% of 15-yearolds to get five or more passes at GCSE at grade C and above.

Meanwhile, of the children growing up in more deprived areas, such as Hillside Road, Dudley, or Laurel Road, Tipton (both in the West Midlands), just 13% are likely to get the top level 5 in the national English tests for 11-year-olds, while only 24% of 15-year-olds will be reckoned to achieve the benchmark do. The more middle-class children there are at the school, the better it does. It is proof that class still rules the classroom.

"The results show that the position of a school in published league tables, the criterion typically used by parents to select successful schools, depends more on the social profile of its pupils than the quality of the teachers," says Webber, who, along with Professor Tim Butler from Kings, has devised new school league tables from the data that take the social background of each pupil into account. "

As it stands, parents who want to do the best for their children should choose a school according to how middle-class its intake is, rather than on the type of school or the quality of the teaching.

"For schools the message is clear. Selecting children whose homes are in high-status neighbourhoods is one of the most effective ways of retaining a high position in the league table. For statisticians, meanwhile, it proves that the existing tables, which ignore the types of home from which a school draws its pupils, are necessarily an unfair and imprecise means of judging a school's achievements."

The study looked at 476,000 11-year olds and 482,000 15-year-olds. The data was analysed through Mosaic, a programme devised by the information company Experian, which divides the UK population by postcode into 11 main groups and 61 types, providing detailed insight into the socio-demographics, lifestyles, culture and behaviour of UK citizens. It is being used in key policy areas, such as health and crime, but this is the first time it has been used to assess the link between education performance and social class.

The study revealed how pupils from each of the 61 socio-economic groups performed given their background, allowing statisticians to set a benchmark score and measure each school's performance against that, in light of its intake. For this research Mosaic was linked to the Pupil Level Annual Statistics Data (National Pupil Database), provided by the DfES, to enable more accurate and context-based benchmarking of educational attainment.

The full report, which has yet to be given a title, will be published later this year and will be available from UCL.

Moving to a segregated system

Webber and Butler warn that introducing further freedoms for schools, as the government is, may allow middle-class parents and schools to choose each other, leaving those from poorer backgrounds stranded in an increasingly segregated system.

"Given the chance, a school will do as well as it can, and, as this research shows, that means attracting as many middleclass pupils as possible. Parentscan see that their children will do better in the most middle-class schools, so they will strive to work the system to get in. So, by giving schools more independence and creating a market in education, you run the serious risk of polarising pupils along class lines," says Webber.

He insists the government's attempts to introduce a market in education are also economically flawed: "The beneficial peer group effects caused by the children of highly educated parents means a market will not operate in the usual way. The best educational achievement for the largest number of pupils will be achieved by having a broad social mix of pupils in as many schools as possible. Some schools that currently draw their pupils from privileged social strata would lose out, but education standards would increase overall."

Ministers who have gone cold on the idea of banding school admissions by ability in last year's white paper are unlikely to take much heed of the authors' concerns, but the new school league tables created by Webber and Butler are likely to raise furtherquestions about the validity of the existing criteria for measuring success.

The tables, which work out how well schools should do in light of the social background of their intake, throw up differences with the scores produced by the DfES. In the primary school table, many previously middling schools come near the top of the pile. For secondary schools, the differences between the DfES's value-added figures and the alternative table are less pronounced. "For the first time, we can see exactly how well schools are doing, taking into account the really crucial factor - the social background of their pupils," said Webber. "Previously even the value-added tables have failed to recognise the success of schools that serve very deprived communities. Conversely, some of the schools that are usually near the top in traditional tables are shown to be not quite as successful when you realise just how privileged their intake is."

This is a view echoed - unsurprisingly - by Christine Haddock, headteacher at Larkspur community school in Gateshead -the most successful primary in the country according to the new league table.

"This is fantastic news," Haddock told Education Guardian. "We have always known that we are doing a good job for the children here, but the usual league tables rarely reflect that feeling.

"We serve a deprived area. In the last three years 46%-59% of our children have been eligible for free school meals [the standard indicator of deprivation]. But these findings reflect what we have always known: that this is a good school that looks after its pupils as well as it possibly can. Many of them are at quite a low level when they arrive, but they make massive strides before they leave.

"In the end, it's not about where you come in tables, it's about the difference that we can make to children's lives round here, but this will be a real boost to all the people who work so hard at the school."

Another primary headteacher who welcomed the new league tables was Simon O'Keefe, headteacher of The Powell School in Dover, Kent, which came second in the country after not making the top 250 schools in the value-added rankings produced by the Guardian from the DfES performance tables.

"It is only in recent years that we are starting to feel we are getting recognition, but nothing like this," says O'Keefe. "It is obviously nice to feel we are successful in what we are trying to do here, but there is always room for improvement and, in the end, league tables are nice, but it is about teaching children to the best of our abilities so that they can reach their potential."

The school has around 33% of pupils eligible for free school meals and a similar proportion with special educational needs. "All our children, with perhaps one or two exceptions, come from the local council estate and from a fairly deprived background, but we have high expectations for them. We have high expectations of what they can achieve and of their behaviour. That, along with excellent teaching, is our fairly obvious secret."

Questions for parents and schools

Among secondary schools, although many community schools with more socially deprived intakes make it into the top 200, some of the more traditional table-toppers still do well, particularly those from the grammar school sector.

Webber says this is because there is more selection at secondary schools, so they often cream off the more able pupils from disadvantaged areas while maintaining high results.

He adds that the research, including the new league tables, should be seen as the start rather than the end of an ongoing discussion.

"There are endless questions that this research throws up for parents and schools and, perhaps most crucially of all, for those making the decisions on where we go from here. Hopefully, this will begin a debate that will lead to a greater understanding of what is actually working in our schools and how best we can help children from all backgrounds achieve their potential."

John Negroponte, the US National Intelligence Director, providedtestimony on Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on"global threats."

Negroponte, who was the US ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April2005, was immediately promoted to his current position after hispresence in Iraq. Ironically, he warned the committee on Tuesday, "Ifchaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to bedefeated in that country ... this would have implications for the restof the Middle East region and, indeed, the world."

Warning of the outcome of a possible civil war in Iraq, Negroponte saidsectarian civil war in Iraq would be a "serious setback" to the globalwar on terror. Note - he did not say it would be a "serious setback" tothe Iraqi people, over 1,400 of whom have been slaughtered in sectarianviolence touched off by the bombing of the Golden Mosque last week inSamarra.

No, the violence and instability in Iraq would be a "serious setback" tothe global "war on terror."

But it's interesting for him to continue, "The consequences for thepeople of Iraq would be catastrophic," whilst feigning his concern.Because generating catastrophic consequences for civilian populationsjust happens to be his specialty.

If we briefly review the political history of John Negroponte, we find aman who has had a career bent toward generating civilian death andwidespread human rights abuses, and promoting sectarian and ethnic violence.

Remember when Negroponte was the US ambassador to Honduras, from 1981 to1985? While there he earned the distinction of being accused ofwidespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on HumanRights while he worked as "a tough cold warrior who enthusiasticallycarried out President Ronald Reagan's strategy," according to cablessent between Negroponte and Washington during his tenure there.

The human rights violations carried out by Negroponte were described as"systematic."

These violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out byoperatives trained by the CIA. Records document his "specialintelligence units," better known as "death squads," comprised ofCIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killedhundreds of people. Victims also included US missionaries (similar toChristian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq) who happened to witness many of theatrocities.

Negroponte had full knowledge of these activities, while he made sure USmilitary aid to Honduras increased from $4 million to $77.4 million ayear during his tenure, and the tiny country became so jammed with USsoldiers it was dubbed the "USS Honduras."

It is also important to remember that Negroponte oversaw construction ofthe air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the US. This airbase, El Aguacate, was also used as a secret detention and torturecenter during his time in Honduras.

While Negroponte was the US ambassador to Honduras, civilian deathssky-rocketed into the tens of thousands. During his first full year, thelocal newspapers carried no less than 318 stories of extra-judicialattacks by the military.

He has been described as an "old fashioned imperialist" and got hisstart during the Vietnam War in the CIA's Phoenix program, whichassassinated some 40,000 Vietnamese "subversives."

Negroponte's death squads used electric shock and suffocation devices ininterrogations, kept their prisoners naked, and when a prisoner was nolonger useful he was brutally executed.

Outraged at the human rights abuses by the Reagan-Bush administration,in 1984 Nicaragua took its case to the World Court in The Hague. Thedecision of the court was for the Reagan-Bush administration toterminate its "unlawful use of force" in international terrorism and paysubstantial reparations to the victims. The White House responded bybrushing off the court's findings and vetoed two UN Security Councilresolutions that affirmed the judgment that all states must observeinternational law.

In the middle of Negroponte's tenure in Iraq, the Pentagon (read DonaldRumsfeld) openly considered using assassination and kidnapping teamsthere, led by the Special Forces.

Referred to not-so-subtly as "the Salvador option," the January 2005rhetoric from the Pentagon publicized a proposal that would send SpecialForces teams to "advise, support and possibly train" Iraqi "squads."Members of these squads would be hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga militiaand Shia Badr militiamen used to target Sunni resistance fighters andtheir sympathizers.

What better man to make this happen than John Negroponte? His experiencemade him the perfect guy for the job. What a nice coincidence that hejust happened to be in Baghdad when the Pentagon/Rumsfeld werediscussing "the Salvador option."

Fast forward to present day Iraq, which is a situation described by theWashington Post in this way: "Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at themorgue at midday Monday - blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed,garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over theirheads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound."

The Independent newspaper from London recently reports that hundreds ofIraqis each month are tortured to death or executed by death squadsworking out of the Shia-run Ministry of Interior.

During the aforementioned committee hearing, Negroponte said that the USis concerned about the purchasing of arms by Venezuelan President HugoChavez. Negroponte accused Chavez of using funds generated from the saleof oil to purchase weaponry, saying, "It's clear that he is spendinghundreds of millions, if not more, for his very extravagant foreignpolicy at the expense of the impoverished Venezuelan population."

Coincidentally, on the exact same day he said this, the US StateDepartment announced that the only new rebuilding money in its latestbudget request for Iraq is for prisons.

With no other big building projects scheduled for Iraq in the next year,the State Department coordinator for Iraq is asking Congress for $100million for prisons, while the Iraqi people languish with 3.2 hours ofelectricity daily in the average home, staggering unemployment andhorrendous security, with most still dependent upon a monthly food ration.

Meanwhile John Pace, the Human Rights Chief for the UN AssistanceMission in Iraq until last month, recently stated that he believes theUS has violated the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and is fueling theviolence via raiding Iraqi homes and detaining thousands of innocentIraqis. Pace estimates that between 80-90% of Iraqi detainees are innocent.

During an interview on Democracy Now!, when asked to described the roleof the militias in Iraq, Pace said "they first started as a kind ofmilitia, sort of organized armed groups, which were the military wing ofvarious factions. And they have - they had a considerable role to playin the [security] vacuum that was created by the invasion."

He went on to describe their actions: "So you have these militias nowwith police gear and under police insignia basically carrying out anagenda which really is not in the interest of the country as a whole.They have roadblocks in Baghdad and other areas, they would kidnap otherpeople. They have been very closely linked with numerous mass executions..."

Pace, when asked if there were death squads in Iraq, replied, "I wouldsay yes, there are death squads," and "my observations would confirmthat at least at a certain point last year and in 2005, we saw numerousinstances where the behavior of death squads was very similar, uncannilysimilar to that we had observed in other countries, including El Salvador."

What we're witnessing in Iraq now with these death squads and escalatingsectarian violence is the product of policies implemented by Negropontewhen he was the US Ambassador in Iraq.

But let us remove the covert operations factor for a moment.

For over a year now, Shia death squads have been killing Sunni en masse.

Thus, at first glance, the bombing of the Golden Mosque last week asSunni retaliation makes sense.

However, what doesn't make sense is the immediate showing of solidaritybetween Shia and Sunni clerics following the bombing.

Let us now reinsert the covert operations factor into this equation.

Along with the showing of religious solidarity, there is widespreadbelief by Shiite religious clerics both in and outside Iraq, as well asbelief in the Arab media, that US covert operations were behind the bombing:

* Shiite Cleric Muqtada Al Sadr blamed the United States occupation forthe current violence. He recently stated, "My message to the Iraqipeople is to stand united and bonded, and not to fall into the Westerntrap. The West is trying to divide the Iraqi people. As God is mywitness, I hereby demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal ofthe occupation forces from Iraq."

* In another interview, Sadr stated, "We say that the occupiers areresponsible for such crisis [Golden Mosque bombing] ... there is onlyone enemy. The occupier."

* Adel Abdul Mehdi, the Iraqi Vice President, held the AmericanAmbassador [Zalmay Khalilzad] responsible for the bombing of the GoldenMosque, "especially since occupation forces did not comply with curfeworders imposed by the Iraqi government."

He added, "Evidence indicates that the occupation may be trying toundermine and weaken the Iraqi government."* At a major demonstration in Beirut, prominent Lebanese Shiite clericand Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said America andIsrael are to blame for the sectarian divisions in Iraq, claiming thatthe violence will offer further justifications for maintaining theoccupation of Iraq.

* According to the Saudi-based Arab News editorial, a civil-war scenariomay serve the interests of the Bush administration: "This may in the endbe what Washington wants, because if Iraq plunges into chaos, it couldbe the Bush ticket out of the Iraq debacle, albeit paid for in rivers ofIraqi blood as well the utter humiliation of the president'sadministration and its neo-con agenda."

* Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, urged Iraqi Shianot to seek revenge against Sunni Muslims, saying there were definiteplots "to force the Shia to attack the mosques and other propertiesrespected by the Sunni," and blamed the intelligence services of the USand Israel for being responsible for the bombing of the Golden Mosque.

* Hoseyn Shari'atmadarit wrote in the Keyhan newspaper of Iran onFebruary 25 of several instances of documented covert operations carriedout by occupation forces in Iraq, including: "In Shahrivar two Britishintelligence officers were arrested [in September 2005] at an inspectionpost while carrying a considerable amount of explosives, detonators andother equipment necessary to build a bomb. This event certainly showsthe direct involvement of the English intelligence service in thebombings in Iraq ... The commander of the English military deployed inBasra [then] issued an order to attack the police centre and release twoEnglish saboteurs."

In the recent committee meeting, Negroponte told US senators he wasseeing progress in Iraq. He said, "And if we continue to make that kindof progress, yes, we can win in Iraq."

Evidently the kind of progress John Negroponte sees in Iraq is not thekind that benefits the Iraqi people. Because the only progress in Iraq,apart from building prisons, is for the situation to continue growingprogressively worse by deepening sectarian divides, despite the bestefforts of religious leaders to create peace and unity.

Would civil war in Iraq be a "serious setback" for John Negroponte?Because the sectarian violence happening in Iraq right now is already a"serious setback" for the Iraqi people.

Thus, does Negroponte really care if there is civil war? Does he reallyconcern himself with the wellbeing of the Iraqi people? Or is his mainconcern creating the catastrophe which keeps them divided?

IN the arena of executive compensation, two recent developments stand out against the backdrop of continuing looting. First, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced plans to make corporations more fully disclose executive pay. Second, a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting found that more companies were imposing performance targets on the stock and options they granted to C.E.O.'s.

To the uninitiated, these events may suggest that some moderation is in the offing, but ultimately neither will help much. Any benefit from shining the cleansing light of day on executive greed will probably be outweighed by the inflationary effect of additional disclosure, which will provide more ammunition for executives and consultants seeking to justify additional increases. They have to keep up with the Joneses, they'll say.

Tying pay more firmly to performance won't help, either. Boards will find ways around the requirements if performance isn't up to snuff, and they will continue to bid irrationally for unduly coveted executives.

As Rakesh Khurana showed in his insightful book, "Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic C.E.O.'s" (Princeton University Press, 2002), there is a much wider pool of potential chief executives than soaring pay levels would seem to imply. But companies insist on bidding for a savior, not a capable leader who knows the business at hand, which may be why typical C.E.O. tenures are now so short. Even in the boardroom, charisma carries you only so far.

Indeed, linking pay to stock prices is liable to do more harm than good. A stock price isn't much of a measure of executive performance, anyway. A huge part of that price reflects industry conditions; energy companies soared not because they were run by paragons of diligence or insight, but because of world events beyond any executive's control. In hard times, moreover, a company's stock may take a hit, but those are precisely the times when good leadership is most difficult — and valuable.

Other performance metrics can be equally troublesome, encouraging executives to massage earnings, sacrifice long-term strength for higher short-term sales and profits and otherwise act in ways detrimental to everyone but the C.E.O., his family and a few lucky divorce lawyers.

Perverse incentives notwithstanding, this focus on metrics is a sad acknowledgment by corporate directors that they cannot control themselves or the pay they hand over to their top five executives. In one study, two professors, Lucian A. Bebchuk of Harvard and Yaniv Grinstein of Cornell, found that from 2001 to 2003, such pay totaled roughly 10 percent of corporate profits at public companies. It's a bizarre twist on the tradition of tithing, one that benefits the rich instead of the needy and conscripts America's shareholders as involuntary donors.

Although more disclosure and pay-for-performance requirements won't dampen runaway C.E.O. compensation, both are useful for illustrating a larger lesson: that it's naïve to place too much faith in the power of rules to limit human behavior. Indeed, the problem of C.E.O. compensation suggests that, as in many aspects of modern life, few mechanisms of constraint are as effective as one on which we relied so often in the past. That mechanism was shame.

You'd think that more disclosure would produce more shame, and thus less pay, for C.E.O.'s and other top executives. Unfortunately, disclosure of a few more million here and there won't fundamentally change a hiring system that actively recruits the most grasping and hubristic candidates. Consider the incentives: by offering lavish pay and perks that would make royalty blush, corporate directors today are perhaps unwittingly selecting C.E.O.'s for shamelessness and egotism rather than leadership.

HISTORY teaches that there is no ultimate solution to the so-called agency problem, or the tendency of those who merely work in an enterprise to act in their own interest rather than that of the owners. Rules and incentives can help, of course, but they cannot take the place of an honest sense of obligation, duty and loyalty — values that ought to run in all directions in any decent corporate culture.

This web of mutual obligation is an invisible social safety net — a form of corporate social capital — which we've unfortunately allowed to fray. Rapidly rising income inequality is a sign of the resulting imbalance.

Corporate chieftains may continue to enjoy unearned bounty, but they should not be surprised if someday they — and the hapless investors who employ them — reap the same brand of cynicism they are sowing. If that happens, we'll all be poorer for it.

Daniel Akst is a journalist and novelist who writes often about business. E-mail: culmoney@nytimes.com.

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Army to Pay Halliburton Unit Most Costs Disputed by AuditBy JAMES GLANZThe Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.The Army said in response to questions on Friday that questionable business practices by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, had in some cases driven up the company's costs. But in the haste and peril of war, it had largely done as well as could be expected, the Army said, and aside from a few penalties, the government was compelled to reimburse the company for its costs.February 27, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/international/middleeast/27contract.html?hp&ex=1141102800&en=8930bc6384bc57a9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Commentary: The Old Cliche’s True – The Rich are Getting Richer, The Poor Getting PoorerDate: Thursday, February 23, 2006By: Judge Greg Mathis, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.comhttp://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/mathis224

FOCUS | Paul Krugman: Graduates versus OligarchsAccording to Paul Krugman, it may take some time before we muster the political will to counter inequality. But the first step toward doing something about inequality is to abandon the 80-20 fallacy. It's time to face up to the fact that rising inequality is driven by the giant income gains of a tiny elite, not the modest gains of college graduates.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706Z.shtml

Two Tiers, Slipping Into OneBy LOUIS UCHITELLEPEORIA, Ill.[This is an important article for those who want to understandwhat's happening to working people here in the USA...bw]February 26, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/business/yourmoney/26wages.html?ex=1141621200&en=9cb1a9505c1b30af&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Rumsfeld Zeros in on the Internet By Mike Whitney http://informationclearinghouse.info/

Schools Where the Only Real Test Is BasketballBy PETE THAMELFebruary 25, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/sports/ncaabasketball/25preps.html?hp&ex=1140930000&en=c338c52b380c9d61&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Taking Spying to Higher Level, Agencies Look for More Ways to Mine DataBy JOHN MARKOFFBut by fundamentally changing the nature of surveillance, high-tech data mining raises privacy concerns that are only beginning to be debated widely. That is because to find illicit activities it is necessary to turn loose software sentinels to examine all digital behavior whether it is innocent or not.February 25, 2006http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/technology/25data.html?pagewanted=all

Swami Beyondananda's 2006 State of the Universe AddressSwami Calls for an Up-WisingWise Up, Everybody ...The Evolution Has Begun! By Swami Beyondanandahttp://www.wakeuplaughing.com/news.html

FOCUS | Paul Krugman: Osama, Saddam and the PortsPaul Krugman writes that Mr. Bush assures us that "people don't need to worry about security." But after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts declared whenever the national political debate seemed to be shifting to questions of cronyism, corruption and incompetence, the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy."http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406Z.shtml

Bill Outlawing Nearly All Abortions Passes in South DakotaSouth Dakota lawmakers yesterday approved the nation's most far-reaching ban on abortion, setting the stage for new legal challenges that its supporters say they hope lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade. The bill makes no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the woman.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306J.shtml

Bill Quigley | Six Months after Katrina: Who Was Left BehindThe people left behind in the evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina are the same people left behind in rebuilding of New Orleans - the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and children - mostly African-American.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206R.shtml

From the Gulf Coast to the Persian GulfMilitary families and veterans of Iraq, Vietnam and other military ventures, together with hurricane survivors, intend to make the connection between the war and the response to Katrina crystal clear on an epic march down Gulf Coast Highway 90, heading into the heart of New Orleans on the third anniversary of the war.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206S.shtml

The revolution is at handStay in the streets: the Black masses are on the march for jobs and freedomhttp://www.sfbayview.com/021506/therevolution021605.shtml

FOCUS | Pablo Paredes: The Spirit of GandhiOn March 12, the seventy-sixth anniversary of "The Salt March," Fernando Suarez Del Solar will begin a 241 mile march that will trace the life and passion of his son Jesus from Tijuana to Camp Pendleton. From there Fernando will continue where his son left off and walk in the footsteps of sections of the great Cesar Chavez-led march from Delano to Sacramento. The march will end on the anniversary of the death of Jesus, March 27, in San Francisco, where Fernando plans to lead a large scale blood drive for those in need in Iraq by being the first to give his blood.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306Z.shtml